[3] Davis was a prominent figure at Harvard Medical School in microbiology and in national science policy.
After earning his Bachelor of Science degree, he enrolled at Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1940 with a rare M.D., summa cum laude.
[7] In a front-note to a posthumously published commentary that appeared in 2000, the major contributions of Davis to microbial physiology has been noted as, "the use of penicillin for the selection of auxotrophic mutants and his U-tube experiment to prove that bacterial conjugation required direct contact between the two bacterial strains.
"[8] In a short article published in Nature in 1978, Davis coined the term "moralistic fallacy"[9] after calls for ethical guidelines to control the study of what could allegedly become "dangerous knowledge."
Hume pointed out the logical fallacy that occurs when deductive reasoning jumps from statements about what is to prescriptions about what ought to be.