Secrecy and Openness in Science: Ethical Considerations

Denunciation of secrecy is ritualistic in modern science. Precisely because the conflicts that secrecy raises for scientists are so strong, their declarations against it are, in part, efforts at conjuring away its power. Unlike other professionals such as lawyers or government officials, modern scientists have never staked out a rationale justifying even limited practices of secrecy. They have held free and open communication to be the most important requirement for their work. Secret practices, although common, have been furtive, and viewed with intense suspicion. This essay considers the nature of the scientists' ritual repudiation of secrecy, and its function as a deterrent to careful inquiry into the ethical problems that choices between secrecy and openness present. In seeking to disentangle and evaluate the different justifications for certain practices of scientific secrecy, the essay will, I hope, contribute to the study of the effects of those practices on the choices scientists make, and on the quality of scientific research. Modern scientists have directed their disavowals of secrecy, first of all, against the ancient and powerful doctrine of esotericism in science: the view that only the elect can penetrate to the mysteries of science, and that to open up the scientific process would destroy it, along with the hopes of its practitioners. This view is expressed in the Hippocratic Corpus as follows: