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    Anime and Manga 
"That's because to him, the fruits of his own research are everything, far more important than the Organization or the battle in our own country."
Rimuto, Claymore

"That's the funny thing, I didn't have a reason. I fully understood no matter what I did my life would be ruined. I could either do it with the science or without, and so I chose science to see if I could. When you have the power to do something, it's hard not to try."
Shou Tucker, Fullmetal Alchemist

"You're desperate to put your mind to use, Ed, to see what you're capable of, to put the world under your fingers. That's the essence of alchemy. You did it for knowledge. Control. Above all, you did it just to prove you can."
Shou Tucker, Fullmetal Alchemist

"This is for the benefit of all mankind! Science is Justice!! Science is Truth!!"

"They thirsted for knowledge. They sought to fulfill their desires. And ultimately, they forgot why they were doing it. Even as they proclaimed their reverence for human life, they began toying with it. And then they began destroying it!"
Rau Le Creuset, Mobile Suit Gundam SEED

    Comic Books 
Doc Samson: Sterns, no! Whatever you're doing, stop! These — these are forces we aren't meant to control—
The Leader: Oh, Leonard. That's why controlling them is so much fun.

"How can you call a few pitiful criminals and ineffectual medical students 'people'? How can the worth of their lives be compared to the ceaseless advance of medical science?"
Dr. Seltsam, Batman: Castle of the Bat

    Fan Works 
"Then we proceed, blindly, in the noble pursuit of science and knowledge."

Merasmus: Interesting. Why have you kept the head alive?
RED Medic: For SCIENCE!
Merasmus: ...That's not an answer.
RED Demoman: For him it is.
— A discussion on why the RED Medic has the BLU Spy's head in his fridge, Waking Nightmares

Sharp stopped walking and turned to the scientist. "So what good is this information to us?" he asked with some annoyance.
"Well..." Lee paused, "as pure science it's fascinating" he said. "Not everything we do should have a military application surely?" he asked then looked awkward.
XSGCOM

Hank: Our dear friend, Eiffel, tried to steal Jean's purse, and when she chased him, he pulled a knife on her. He's going to be our guest until he sees the error of his ways and is willing to confess his crimes to the police.
Scott: If he doesn't confess?
Hank: I need a human subject for my gene splicing experiments. We can keep him down in the basement lab.
Scott: What about those pesky things called 'ethics'?
Hank: Blah, Blah. What's one life to further science?

    Film — Live-Action 
"When science is on the march, nothing can stand in its way!"
Paul Bartel, Amazon Women on the Moon

[Doc Brown and Marty are hijacking a train]
Doc: Reach!
Engineer: Is this a holdup?
[Beat as Doc and Marty look at each other]
Doc: It's a science experiment!

Venkman: Egon, this reminds me of the time you tried to drill a hole through your head. Remember that?
Egon: That would've worked if you hadn't stopped me.

"Seriously, Betty, you know what this meteor could mean to science. If we find it, and it's real, it could mean a lot. It could mean actual advances in the field of science."
Paul Armstrong, The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra

Frank: [describing opening the tomb of Anck-es-en-Amon] ...But when it came time to handle all her clothes and her jewels and her toilet things... Well, when it came time to unwrap the girl herself...
Helen: How could you do that?!
Frank: [chipper] Had to — science, you know.

"This was when science didn't have to have any specific purpose."

Katherine: Don't you understand? This is the greatest discovery since van Leeuwenhoek first looked through a microscope and saw an amoeba!
Bubba: Yeah, but he wasn't down there with the amoebas!

    Literature 

The fact that it actually seemed a credible threat nonetheless proved no deterrent to Merrick's burning experimental quest... He was unsteady with trepidation, shivering in the chamber's humid, blasting heat, more apprehensive on this occasion than the first time he had encountered one of these things. Was this because he knew what he was doing was wrong? He couldn't afford to think about that. He had to proceed. There would be no second chances at this, and he had to know.

"Scientists are like children told not to look in a particular room... Once their minds are set upon it, nothing will mean so much to them as their desire to uncover whatever is locked to them. No matter how disastrous the possible consequences, they regard their work as paramount, as though the pursuit of science constitutes its own moral imperative... Scientists pride themselves on objectivity, but they cannot be trusted to be objective when it comes to the morality of their own conduct."
Cardinal Tullian, Pandaemonium

It is only when science asks why, instead of simply describing how, that it becomes more than technology.
When it asks why, it discovers Relativity. When it only shows how, it invents the atomic bomb, and then puts its hands over its eyes and says, "My God, What Have I Done?"
Ursula K. Le Guin, "The Stalin in the Soul" in The Language of the Night

"I think the rules were different there. It was all about science, but the science was magical. It didn't care about whether something could be done. It was about whether it should be done, and the answer was always, always yes."
Jack Wolcott, on the subject of the Moors, Down Among the Sticks and Bones

"I was as skilled a healer as Ebrose, but aspired to surpass him. For hundreds of years the men of the Citadel have opened the bodies of the dead, to study the nature of life. I wished to understand the nature of death, so I opened the bodies of the living."

    Live-Action TV 
Howard: And as long as we're talking about betraying our friends, how about the month Sheldon spent grinding up insects and mixing them into Leonard's food?
Sheldon: Wh— exCUUse me, that was not a betrayal, that was an experiment to determine at what concentration food starts tasting... mothy.
Leonard: You put moths in my food?!
Sheldon: ...For science.

Crell Moset: You're a physician. You know there's always a price to pay for the advancement of medical science.
Doctor: Sometimes that price is too high! Torture?!
Moset: Your word, not mine. I cured the Fostossa virus, didn't I? So these experiments you say I conducted obviously helped me devise a treatment. Imagine how many lives would have been lost if I hadn't eliminated this disease.
Doctor: That doesn't justify using people in laboratory experiments.
Moset: As I explained to you, during the Occupation I was forced to improvise. I used what resources I had.
Doctor: And ethical considerations, they mean nothing to you?
Moset: Ethics are arbitrary. How do you suppose your own database was developed? Hmm? My God, half the medical knowledge acquired on Earth came through experiments on lower animals!
Doctor: But not people.
Moset: It's convenient to draw a line between higher and lower species, isn't it?
Doctor: This is the 24th century, Crell. Your kind of barbarism ended a long time ago. Or at least, it should have!

David Rossi: They were human beings.
Mason Turner: They were transients and drug users and prostitutes. They were useless to society. I gave them the chance to be part of a cure. To be of use. That's science.

The Doctor: Just one small question. Why do you want to blow up the world?
Zaroff: Why? You, a scientist, ask me why? The achievement, my dear Doctor. The destruction of the world. The scientist's dream of supreme power!

The Doctor: Your past is littered with the mutilated results of your unethical experiments!
Rani: I had all I can take of that cant in our university days. Am I expected to abandon my research because of the side effects on inferior species? Are you prepared to abandon walking in case you squash an insect underfoot?

[Dr. Forrester has replaced Frank's blood with radiator fluid and implanted a radiator in him to regulate his temperature]
Joel: But wait a minute, why didn't you just leave Frank with his own blood, and that way he could wear a jacket and scarf and stuff?
Forrester: ...And since Frank's blood was a previously unknown type, the money that that brings in sh— "WHY"?! Because it's science, that's why!

"I ate a radio for science!"
Adam Savage often does really weird things in the name of Mythbusters

"This is the best data EVER!"
Grant of Mythbusters goes bungee jumping

Dr. Roy Martindale: You must uncover all your powers, see if they can be harnessed.
Tom Crane: Now hang on, I'm not a shire horse, you know. Maybe I don't want to be harnessed or uncovered.
Martindale: Tom, it's your duty as a human being. Don't you see that? The work we're doing here is immensely important. Science has pushed forward on so many fronts. We've put men on the moon, machines on the planets, we've split the atom, developed nuclear power, we're even on the threshold of developing the power of the sun itself.
Crane: Well, yes, but—
Martindale: And yet we've barely scratched the surface of the potential power of the human mind, which has already achieved all these things. We must investigate it. Learn how to use it to the full!
Crane: As long as we appreciate the risks involved in the investigation.
Matindale: There're always risks in exploring new territory, pushing back the frontiers, challenging the accepted limits. Where would we be if men had never taken risks? We'd still be living in caves. God alone knows that was risky enough in itself.
The Omega Factor, "Out of Body, Out of Mind"

    Music 
Science brings gifts of convenience
To the modern man
Modern man then continues
Continues to expand
But what happens when
Man creates something oh so wrong?
Nature bites back in a big way
Good heavens, what have I done?!
The Aquabats!, "The Cat with Two Heads!"

Once ze rockets are up, who cares vere zey come down?
"Zat's not my department," says Wernher von Braun.
Tom Lehrer, "Wernher von Braun", That Was the Year That Was

    Stand-Up Comedy 
"You might as well have said, 'Hey, we just made cancer airborne and contagious. You're welcome! We're science! We're all about coulda, not shoulda.'"
Patton Oswalt, Werewolves and Lollipops

"A snail can travel over a razor blade without cutting itself. Or to put it another way, sometimes scientists get bored."

    Theatre 
The Creature: You make sport with my life!
Victor: In the cause of science!

    Video Games 
"Oh, Pyriss! Though minds concerned with the follies of human existence might see your life as a tragedy, I must maintain my scientific detachment, and see your agonized existence for what it is: My Rosetta stone! Your genetic structure will finally unlock all the secrets of the Devouring Earth to me! The world has no idea what waits for it, but you, you shall be here to see the dawning of a new day for SCIENCE!"
Werner Von Grün, City of Heroes

"The one thing you have to learn with science is that if you stop to ask yourself if you should do something, you've already lost faith in thinking that you can do it."
Dr. Shelly Percey, City of Villains

"Since when did people start expecting science to be humane? To study the body, you cut it open. To study the mind, you isolate it by crushing the heart. Historically, that's how science has advanced."
Serph Sheffield, Digital Devil Saga 2

"I... was defeated by my drive to become a scientist. I lost the last time, too. I've injected Jenova's cells into my own body! Heee, hee, hee! Here are... Heee, hee, hee! ...my results!!"

"You would risk an apocalypse out of sheer curiosity!?"
Master Eraqus, addressing Master Xehanort, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

"Look too hard for one thing and you miss everything else. And then, the people around you get hurt in the process. Like Xehanort. His single-minded thirst for answers created Ansem. We all have a little of that curiosity in us... So if we're not careful, any one of us could create an Ansem."

Saïx: [Axel] gave you a second lease on life.
Vexen: He ripped me away from the one thing I care about. I don't require humanity. Give me my research. I must see it to fruition, no matter the cost.

Tia: Professor, how could you let Maxim do something so dangerous?
Prof. Lexis: How could I stop him? Man versus Sinistral... What a fascinating experiment!

Aperture Science
We do what we must
because we can.
For the good of all of us.
Except the ones who are dead
.

"Okay, look. We've both said a lot of things that you're going to regret. But I think we can put our differences behind us. For science. You monster."
GLaDOS, Portal 2

"Science isn't about "why," it's about "why not?" Why is so much of our science dangerous? Why not marry safe science if you love it so much? In fact, why not invent a special safety door that won't hit you on the butt on the way out, because you are fired! Not you, test subject, you're doing fine. Yes, you. Box. Your stuff. Out the front door. Parking lot. Car. Goodbye."
Cave Johnson, CEO of Aperature Science, Portal 2

"I'll be honest, we're throwing Science at the wall here to see what sticks. No idea what it'll do."
Cave Johnson, Portal 2

"Next, they tell me you people are conducting some anomalous materials research that could result in a Resonance Cascade. So, I'm shutting that down before you idiots end the world. ...A resonance cascadeyou're supposed to be scientists! Use some common sense."
Black Mesa Cave Johnson, Portal 2, Perpetual Testing Initiative DLC

"Whenever something's done 'in the name of science', it always means trouble."

Republic Scientist: No! We're nothing like you! What we did had meaning, it was for science!
Operative Bator: Ah, science — that convenient bastion for the truly amoral.

"I defeated a raccoon! SCIENCE!"
M.O.D.O.K.'s win quote against Rocket Raccoon, Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3

Somewhere between what science can do and what it should do is Kala Kapur.
Loading screen, Evolve

The process was unconscionable, but results are results.
Condemned Experiment description, Sunless Skies

    Webcomics 
Gil: Okay, my turn. You've got a lot to learn about talking to patients.
Agatha: Oh, but, science
Gil: Shh.

Vespiary Girl: We'd better get those notes. Otherwise you Sparks will want to experiment on my weasels.
Tarvek: Only for science...

Rahm: The Black Tongues are one brotherhood but each of us act independently. Some seek to better the world through pymary; dismantle the woes of humanity! Others dismantle infants...
Iori: They should toss that Delicieu out on his ear!
Rahm: The day they start policing us is the day I walk.

"Plans? I don't make plans, I make breakthroughs."
Dr. Fumiaki, Genocide Man

"'Why' is outside the domain of science. Science seeks only to answer 'how' and 'what'. If you want answers to 'why', go take a philosophy class!"
Professor Beiser, Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, regarding his experiments on the topic of bears with jetpacks

    Web Original 
Empirical data's your only man, when formulating a research plan.
A soldier's death is never in vain if it makes the formula more plain.
A few dozen make a better case for refining that third decimal place.
They call me Zombie because I don't sleep, as I slowly struggle to climb this heap,
of corpses, data points, and trials, but from the top — I'll see for miles!
a forum signature

"Don't worry, I'm doing it FOR SCIENCE! and that makes everything okay."

"Will Relativistic Heavy-ion Colliders Destroy Our Planet?", the rebuttals to which were basically, "Let's turn them on and find out!"

Snake: Did you invent Metal Gear?
Otacon: Yes, as a weapon of love and peace! It fires flowers and rainbows and turns incoming warheads into puppies and butterflies!
Snake: Sounds about right, if by "flowers and rainbows" you mean "nuclear missiles."
Otacon: Oh no, how could it be that I've invented a weapon specifically for the purpose of filling everyone with warm fuzzy joy and never once realized that it was better suited for dropping nuclear weapons on faraway nations!?
Snake: My guess would be it's because you're a big idiot.

    Western Animation 
"What a fine day... for science!"

Lisa Simpson: Mr. Tatum, do you mind if I swab you with this damp rag?
Drederick Tatum: No, not at all. Swab away. [...] Whoa, whoa, nobody mentioned a beaker.
Lisa Simpson: Please? It's for science.
Drederick Tatum: Oh, for science. In that case, proceed.

Sally Impossible: What could be more important than your family, Richard?!
Richard Impossible: Sssssssscience?

"There's no such thing as a 'failed' experiment. There is always data!"

    Real Life 
"There is no such thing as 'Good Knowledge' or 'Evil Knowledge'. There is only Knowledge. Morality is when you decide not to use it."
Anonymous

"Science never sacrifices itself. It is always murderous."
Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation

"I felt it myself, the glitter of nuclear weapons. It is irresistible if you come to them as a scientist. To feel it's there in your hands. To release the energy that fuels the stars. To let it do your bidding. And to perform these miracles, to lift a million tons of rock into the sky, it is something that gives people an illusion of illimitable power, and it is in some ways responsible for all our troubles, I would say, this what you might call 'technical arrogance' that overcomes people when they see what they can do with their minds."
— Nuclear physicist and mathematician Freeman Dyson explains how it feels

"Is Science of any value? I think power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing of a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value. Once in Hawaii I was taken to see a Buddhist temple. In the temple a man said, 'To every man is given the key to the gates of heaven. The same key opens the gates of hell.' And so is it with Science."
Richard Feynman, co-developer of the atomic bomb.


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