Bernard Davis

Bernard David Davis (January 7, 1916 – January 14, 1994) was an American biologist who made major contributions in microbial physiology and metabolism. Davis was a prominent figure at Harvard Medical School in microbiology and in national science policy. He was the 1989 recipient of the Selman A. Waksman Award in Microbiology from the National Academy of Sciences.

Davis was born in Franklin, Massachusetts, where his parents, Jewish immigrants from Lithuania, had settled. (Davis himself was nonobservant, and "insisted on atheism".) He was valedictorian at his high school, then attended Harvard University, where he majored in biochemistry. After earning his Bachelor of Science degree, he enrolled at Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1940 with a rare M.D., summa cum laude. He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958. In a front-note to a posthumously published commentary that appeared in 2000, the major contributions of Davis to microbial physiology has been noted as, "the use of penicillin for the selection of auxotrophic mutants and his U-tube experiment to prove that bacterial conjugation required direct contact between the two bacterial strains."

Davis coined the term "moralistic fallacy" after calls for ethical guidelines to control the study of what could allegedly become "dangerous knowledge." The term is intended as a converse to the naturalistic fallacy, coined by David Hume in the 18th century, which occurs when reasoning jumps from statements about what is to prescription about what ought to be.

Sometimes a theory is rejected with a reference to the danger of misuse. In doing so, one fails to differentiate sufficiently clearly between its epistemological value and its practical value, or between the moral, value-free knowledge and – in consideration of moral valuations – the potentially negative consequences of the knowledge. From a perspective of scientific theory, the accuracy of a theory is relevant, not its practical value, its origin or history of use. No theory is protected against misuse, nor can a theory be falsified by misuse. Both misuse as well as renunciation of knowledge can have disadvantageous consequences.

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