[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-40966-en":3,"doc-seo-40966-105":29,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":91},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":20,"is_downloadable":20,"audit_status":20,"page_count":21,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":28},40966,1374391974564,"Clementine","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/avatar/14000253aa45c000a9e?x-image-process=image/resize,m_fixed,w_180,h_180&k=1779874745381141002",8,"Research & Report","Will Moralization of Science Lead to Better Science","The article examines how recent policies and moral critiques connect scientists’ conduct to the moral evaluation of research, focusing on the 2018 NSF sexual-harassment measures and subsequent NIH rules affecting accused researchers’ eligibility for peer review. It also addresses calls to retract peer-reviewed results based on alleged disagreement with moral convictions rather than proven invalidity. The analysis proposes a new process of moralization that may transform relations between science and society and questions whether these changes enable “better” or more robust science.","Article  \nWill Moralization of Science Lead to “Better”Science?  \nYves Gingras  \nCentre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (CIRST), Université du Québec à Montréal; [gingras.yves@uqam.ca](gingras.yves@uqam.ca)  \nSubmitted: 29 May 2021, accepted: 5 July 2022, published: 31 October 2022  \nAbstract: In the fall of 2018, The US National Science Foundation (NSF) implemented a new policy on sexual harassment. A few months later, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), took a further step in the fight against harassment by announcing that researchers accused of harassment, but not yet found guilty, could nonetheless be excluded from the lists of potential reviewers of submitted projects. We also observe a recent tendency to call for the retraction of published peer reviewed results on the basis that their conclusions are considered to go against the moral convictions of some social groups, though the lack of validity of the results has not been proven. It is certainly a legitimate question to ask whether these kinds of policies and moral critiques, which directly link the practice of science to the moral behavior of the scientists in the larger society, do not initiate a profound transformation in the relations between science and society by adding to the usually implicit norms governing the scientific community a new form of moralization of the scientists themselves. We analyze these recent events in terms of a new process of moralization of science and ask whether these new rules of conduct may lead to doing better or more robust science.  \nKeywords: norms of science; moralization; autonomy of science  \nHow to cite: Gingras, Y. Will Moralization of Science Lead to “Better” Science?. Journal of Controversial Ideas 2022 , 2(2), 4; doi:10 .35995/jci02020004 .  \n©2022 Copyright by the author. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4 .0) license.  \nIn the fall of 2018, The US National Science Foundation (NSF) implemented a new policy on sexual harassment.1 It states, in essence, that any scientist can have their research grants withdrawn if found guilty of sexual or other forms of harassment. A few months later, another American agency responsible for distributing research grants, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), took a further step in the fight against harassment by announcing that researchers accused of harassment, though not yet found guilty, could nonetheless  \n1 News Release 18 082. (September 19, 2018) . “NSF announces new measures to protect research community from harassment.” [https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=296610](https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=296610) .  \nbe excluded from the lists of potential reviewers of submitted projects. As we know, any research project, like any article submitted for publication, is first peer reviewed to judge the scientific quality of the project. The reports, usually anonymous, are used to decide whether or not to support the project financially or to publish or not the submitted paper. The tendency to use double blind review—even triple blind in some journals—is implicitly based on the idea that only the validity of the science, not the physical or psychological characters of the authors, is tested. From this point of view, the NSF and NIH policies are different. Whereas the first is not compatible with the idea of universalism, that of the NIH invokes a possibility of a form of conflict of interest going against the “integrity of the process,” given that the authors of the submitted project are known to the reviewers and could thus lack objectivity in their evaluation. The NIH explained that a person accused of harassment, usually a man,“could give better scores to proposals from female postdocsto avoid appearing biased, even if the science didn’t deserve that score.” As for the sources of the allegations, they could come, she adds,“not only f","cbCaimayKwNKA672","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaimayKwNKA672","pdf",134283,1,9,"English","en",105,"# Background: NSF and NIH policy changes\n# Moral critiques and retraction debates\n# Moralization as a transformation of science-society relations\n# Effects on science quality and the autonomy of research","[{\"question\":\"What policies by NSF and NIH are discussed in the article?\",\"answer\":\"The article describes an NSF policy that allows withdrawal of research grants if a scientist is found guilty of sexual or other harassment. It also covers NIH’s step of excluding accused, not-yet-guilty researchers from reviewer lists for submitted projects.\"},{\"question\":\"How does the article compare NSF and NIH approaches to scientific review and funding?\",\"answer\":\"It argues NSF and NIH policies differ in consequence: NSF withdrawal directly affects producing research, while NIH exclusion during review removes a person from a task that others can perform, similar to conflict-of-interest handling.\"},{\"question\":\"What central concern does the article raise about “moralization” and science quality?\",\"answer\":\"The article questions whether linking scientific practice to scientists’ moral behavior introduces a profound transformation in science-society relations and whether such rules can lead to better or more robust science, especially when moral objections replace evidence of invalidity.\"}]",1783317273,23,{"code":4,"msg":30,"data":31},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":32,"title":13,"keywords":33,"description":14,"schema_data":34,"social_meta":86,"head_meta":88,"extra_data":90,"updated_unix":27},"will-moralization-of-science-lead-to-better-science","",{"@graph":35,"@context":85},[36,53,68],{"@type":37,"itemListElement":38},"BreadcrumbList",[39,43,47,50],{"item":40,"name":41,"@type":42,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":44,"name":45,"@type":42,"position":46},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":48,"name":12,"@type":42,"position":49},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":51,"name":13,"@type":42,"position":52},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/will-moralization-of-science-lead-to-better-science/40966/",4,{"url":51,"name":13,"@type":54,"author":55,"headline":13,"publisher":57,"fileFormat":60,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":61,"datePublished":62,"encodingFormat":60,"isAccessibleForFree":63,"interactionStatistic":64},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":56},"Person",{"url":40,"name":58,"@type":59},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-12","2026-07-06",true,{"@type":65,"interactionType":66,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":67},"ViewAction",{"@type":69,"mainEntity":70},"FAQPage",[71,77,81],{"name":72,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":74},"What policies by NSF and NIH are discussed in the article?","Question",{"text":75,"@type":76},"The article describes an NSF policy that allows withdrawal of research grants if a scientist is found guilty of sexual or other harassment. It also covers NIH’s step of excluding accused, not-yet-guilty researchers from reviewer lists for submitted projects.","Answer",{"name":78,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":79},"How does the article compare NSF and NIH approaches to scientific review and funding?",{"text":80,"@type":76},"It argues NSF and NIH policies differ in consequence: NSF withdrawal directly affects producing research, while NIH exclusion during review removes a person from a task that others can perform, similar to conflict-of-interest handling.",{"name":82,"@type":73,"acceptedAnswer":83},"What central concern does the article raise about “moralization” and science quality?",{"text":84,"@type":76},"The article questions whether linking scientific practice to scientists’ moral behavior introduces a profound transformation in science-society relations and whether such rules can lead to better or more robust science, especially when moral objections replace evidence of invalidity.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":51,"og:type":87,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":58,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":89,"canonical":51},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":92},[93,97,101,105,110,115,120,123,127,130,134],{"id":20,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":94,"show_sort_weight":95,"slug":96},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":98,"show_sort_weight":99,"slug":100},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":102,"show_sort_weight":103,"slug":104},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":106,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":107,"show_sort_weight":108,"slug":109},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":111,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":112,"show_sort_weight":113,"slug":114},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":116,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":117,"show_sort_weight":118,"slug":119},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":121,"slug":122},30,"research-report",{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":124,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":126},"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":125,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":128,"show_sort_weight":125,"slug":129},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":131,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":132,"show_sort_weight":131,"slug":133},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":135,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":45,"category_name":136,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":137},19,"General","general"]