The idea that ethics is important in scientific research is not new. In 1830 Charles Babbage (1791–1871) admonished British scientists for engaging in dishonest research. In 1912 researchers discovered the fossil skull of a missing link between humans and apes at the Piltdown quarry in Sussex, England. After four decades of controversy, several scientists proved that the skull was a hoax.

At the beginning of World War II, prominent physicists believed that it was their moral obligation to help defeat Nazi Germany. Albert Einstein wrote a letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) urging the United States to develop the atomic bomb. J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904–1967) directed the Manhattan Project, a $1 billion effort to build the first nuclear weapons. After the United States dropped two bombs on Japan in the summer of 1945, many scientists who worked on the bomb also led the Atoms for Peace movement, which...