David Deutsch explains why “all evils are due to lack of knowledge.” It’s an illuminating frame for questions of good vs bad science.

There’s a risk in conflating scientific discoveries such as the nature of atoms with applications such as atom bombs and decisions about how new technologies should be deployed. All these forms represent the growth of knowledge, but they also vary considerably in their moral content. They each embody different explanations that need to be teased apart.

Closed science is a bad idea because it limits error-correcting mechanisms and the growth of good knowledge. There isn’t a monolithic construct of modern science. There’s a wide range of methods and philosophical commitments, some tremendously productive, others not so much.