Science and Justice

In different ways, the November-December 2024 issue of the Hastings Center Report contests the view that science is a value-free endeavor to understand the world. The lead article argues that, while most science is commendable, some is inherently “abhorrent,” as it is both harmful and devoid of value. Contemporary “race science”—the work of a “new wave of race researchers” who use “questionable scientific techniques to investigate alarming hypotheses regarding the genomic basis of differences in cognitive abilities between racial and ethnic groups”—is, for the authors, a paradigmatic case of abhorrent science. The intersection of genomics and values is also the subject of a special report, “Toward a More Just Genomics,” published with this issue.