Pope John Paul II gave a talk to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences on the humanistic dimension of scientific work in which he said: “The ethical and moral responsibilities connected to scientific research are a requirement within science, because it is a fully human activity, but they are not a control, or worse, an imposition from the outside. The man of science knows well, from the point of view of his knowledge, that the truth cannot be subjected to negotiation, cannot be obscured or abandoned to conventions or agreements between powerful groups, societies, or states. Therefore, because of the ideal of serving the truth, he feels a special responsibility for the advancement of mankind, not understood in generic or ideal terms, but as the advancement of the whole man and of everything that is authentically human.”