Science for Peace in the Benefit of Humankind. The Hippocratic Oath for Scientists concept

TL;DR

This paper examines the historical development of ethical commitments for scientists, especially in relation to nuclear disarmament, highlighting the exponential growth of Hippocratic Oath proposals aligned with global military escalation.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of the evolution and dissemination of Hippocratic Oaths for scientists and their connection to historical nuclear and military developments.

Findings

Ethical proposals for scientists increased exponentially post-World War II.

The growth of oath proposals follows a logistic pattern similar to technological diffusion.

Correlation found between oath proposal peaks and nuclear armament levels.

Abstract

This article shows the importance that has had the scientific research, the technological development and the innovation processes in increasing the lethality of the available weapons during the last century. A set of initiatives promoted by the scientific community to stop the nuclear arms race that threatened the continuation of life on the planet is described. At this point, a thorough survey of the texts and proposals of Hippocratic Oaths for Scientists presented at different epochs is made. It is observed that the interest in linking ethical aspects with science and technology issues shows an exponential growth behavior since the Second World War. It is shown how the several proposals of oaths and ethical commitments for scientists, engineers and technologists are disseminated following a logistic growth behavior, in the same manner as a disembodied technology in a particular niche. The data analysis shows that there is a coincidence between the maximum rate of proposals and the historical moment at which the world had deployed the largest number of nuclear warheads (70,586) as well as the largest world military expenditures in history (USD 1,485,000,000,000). Subsequently, the origin of the Hippocratic Oath for Scientists used for more than two decades in graduation ceremonies at the Faculty of Exact and Natural Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires is analyzed and linked with the historical circumstances of its birth.