Session D38: Invited Session: Secrecy and Science

Secrecy versus Openness: Historical Perspectives

``I think all members of the laboratory are agreed that the work which is being pursued here is of such importance that we should not like to see it or any part of it fall into private or foreign hands,'' J. Robert Oppenheimer announced to his colleagues at Los Alamos on November 15, 1943, putting the first formal secrecy policies into effect--while promising ``to make the procedure as little burdensome as possible, and to reduce its interference with the actual prosecution of the work.'' ``After the war, the question of secrecy was reconsidered... but the practice of classification continued; it was our `security,' whether it worked or failed,'' Oppenheimer's colleague Edward Teller updated us in 1981, halfway between the mimeographed handout of 1943 and the labyrinthine security policies of today. ``We now have millions of classified technical documents,'' Teller continued, and ``the limitations we impose on ourselves by restricting information are far greater than any advantage others could gain.'' Teller titled his critique ``The Road to Nowhere.'' Is there a road back? In some notable cases (digital computing, satellite reconnaissance, GPS) we have taken the road to openness, and Teller's opinion, at least in this domain, appears to have been correct.   

The Growing Tension Between Openness and Risk in the Life Sciences

The ongoing revolution in the life sciences provides new critical insights and radically new capabilities to an ever increasing number of global participants. While the overwhelming majority of outcomes are beneficial, a small number of discoveries and capabilities pose unusual risks for misuse and widespread harm to humans, animals, plants and the larger ecosphere. The deliberate engineering of a highly virulent and transmissible Influenza virus in 2013 is an example. As was discussed in the early years of nuclear weapons research, are there now experiments in the life sciences that ought not to be undertaken because of disproportionate risks? Is there information from life sciences research that ought not be widely disseminated? If either is true, then what should be the process by which a consensus is reached about the identification and management of such work? What are the moral and ethical responsibilities of life scientists?\\[4pt] Relman DA. The increasingly compelling moral responsibilities of life scientists. Hastings Center Report 2013; 43:34-35.\\[0pt] Relman DA. ``Inconvenient Truths'' in the Pursuit of Scientific Knowledge and Public Health. J Infect Dis 2014; 209:170-2.   

Intellectual Property and Corporate Research: Threats to Scientific Openness

Science, in its idealized form, is an open source pursuit. Discoveries, while credited to their discoverers, are treated as part of the intellectual Commons. Laws concerning intellectual property, on the other hand, seek to establish private ownership of ideas and technologies. What are the benefits of each approach? And what are the costs? In this talk, I'll look at these questions from the perspective of a practicing scientist, arguing for greater openness yet recognizing that, as Ts'ai Ken T'an said, ``water which is too pure has no fish.''