On May 14, a disturbed teenager shot dead 10 black people in Buffalo, New York, in a racist murder. Commentators reached, as we do when in shock, for familiar arguments. Some blamed institutional racism, some gun laws, some online radicalization. A handful blamed scientists.

“Scientists have to recognize that their research can be weaponized,” wrote Janet D. Stemwedel, a philosopher of science at San Jose State University, in Scientific American. “They need to think hard not only about how their findings might be misinterpreted or misused, but also about the point of even conducting the studies they do of differences among racial groups.”