Science Quote by William Masters

Masters is drawing a hard boundary between what science can do and what people keep begging it to do: deliver moral verdicts. Coming from a scientist best known for mapping human sexuality with clinical bluntness, the line reads like a defense against the predictable backlash. He’s saying, in effect, don’t blame the microscope for what you see through it.

The first sentence is a strategic disavowal. “Science by itself has no moral dimension” rejects the comforting fantasy that data arrives pre-labeled as good or evil. It also swats away a familiar accusation: that research into taboo subjects is inherently corrupting. Masters insists the method is morally neutral; the scandal, if any, belongs to our interpretations and anxieties.

Then he pivots. Science may be amoral, but it’s not meaningless. “It does seek to establish truth” is a claim about discipline and humility: evidence is the referee, not ideology. The subtext is pointed for a mid-century America that often treated sexual ignorance as virtue and moral certainty as a substitute for understanding. Masters is arguing that you can’t legislate or preach your way around facts about bodies, behavior, and health.

The final move is the real provocation: morality doesn’t float above reality; it needs a foundation. “Upon this truth morality can be built” reframes ethics as something that should be engineered against the grain of what’s real, not what’s socially convenient. It’s an argument for informed compassion: if you want humane norms, start by refusing comforting myths.