Letter: National Science Week: was it empty rhetoric or a cause for celebration?

Sir: Lewis Wolpert is right that science is not about moral values (Letters, 24 March). But it is precisely its amorality that frightens certain people. Nuclear weapons, environmental pollution and cruelty to animals in experiments are seen as products of this scientific amorality, and it is issues such as these that give science a bad name.

Science must put its own house in order. Scientists must be seen to be on the right side in the major moral debates of our time. Only in this way will science regain the respect it deserves.

Yours faithfully,

RICHARD RYDER

Haytor, Devon

24 March