I suppose you could see it that way. I myself am put off with this altar status of amorality and content neutrality bit floating around nowadays. They push it in the courts, you know. I don't trust it, no, not at all.
To put it straight, there is no science without thought. We do science. We think it. No thought, no science. Remember your old Latin, scientia. It means knowledge. In a real way, science is the scientia of the human person. And isn't the human person a moral being? When knowledge is thought to be amoral, I think there is a serious misunderstanding. It begins to bifurcate or life, to split it. And then we become alienated from the world we know we loved.
This problem is related to the fact-value distinction that is raised in the article (not to mention the fact-value-truth distinction).
So what do you mean then, by saying it is amoral? It sounds as if science is a Mr. or Mrs. who is exempt.
Yes, you are right. "Science" means knowledge, and only took on a more particular meaning, previously denoted by the term "natural philosophy," in the late Renaissance.
Pope Benedict has been pointing out the dangers of splitting rational thought from religion. Ultimately, it is theology and philosophy that lay the groundwork for science, and when scientists casually dismiss this ancient, hard-won knowledge, they are cutting away the very foundations of their work.
"Amoral" in this sense refers to value-free situations, making it a synonym of "nonmoral" (neither moral nor immoral).
For example, physics would be an amoral discipline, neither moral nor immoral in itself. However, isn't there an ethical code attached to the practice of each discipline? And when this ethical code is breached, isn't the science therein in danger of becoming "perverted" science?
There's a difference between amoral and immoral. I agree the science in and of itself is amoral. It's what's done with it that has the morality attached to it.