Is Science Dangerous? (2002) [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Is Science Dangerous? (2002) [pdf]

#11

Post by vinay427 » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 12:58 PM UTC

one-more-minute wrote: post #3

jacquesm wrote: post #2

Super good piece. Science has a real PR problem though and that will be hard to fix, the public image of scientists is one that is mostly one of fear and distrust in spite of the visible good that science has done in almost every life. The media really aren't helping here. If 40 years ago 'being a scientist' was a great thing to aspire to as a kid nowadays you're more likely to hear the same thing about kids wanting…

As someone from the UK, I haven't really noticed this. Is it a US thing? (Possibly related to there being less religious thinking in Europe in general?) I've always felt that as a culture we see STEM degrees as more "real" or valuable than more social subjects (for better or worse), in sharp contrast to historical thinking. On top of that, TV series about science and mathematics (astronomy in particular) only seem to…

As someone from the US, I think the examples you gave (how degrees are perceived and TV series) also apply here. However, I feel like while STEM qualifications are well-regarded as challenging yet necessary, they have lost some of their glory from a few decades ago during the Cold War, etc. (as portrayed in history textbooks, anyway) when it was more of an immediate national security priority.

Re: Is Science Dangerous? (2002) [pdf]

#12

Post by harperlee » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 1:51 PM UTC

jorleif wrote: post #9

eemax wrote: post #6

Of course science is dangerous. The study of atomic physics very nearly led to nuclear war. > Dangers and ethical issues only arise when science is applied as technology. I mostly disagree with this sentiment. If you're a nuclear physicist, and you publish a paper about the theoretical aspects of fission chain reactions, and realize that they may allow for good things, like nuclear power, and bad things, like nuclear…

I feel this solves a very small part of the problem. This is only about the morality of the individual scientist, while the problem is at the level of the collective process of science. I mean, it is of course good if the individual scientist who discovers X way to kill off humanity keeps it secret, but eventually someone else will also discover X, and then someone else, and so on. Do we require of scientists that th…

It is a complicated matter... as long a science advances and is accesible to all, we all gain more power. That enables everybody to be dangerous. I can go anywhere in the world, access a huge amount of information, purchase and have sent home lots of things very cheaply, etc.

We crave power, both in the sense of ability and energy, and it seems to grow monotonically (Freeman Dyson proposed searching for efficient star-energy-capturing devices as a way to find ET life: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere).

But I agree, it seems that it is not very easy to prevent new science to be discovered. We are a curious species, and even if we go back to the dark ages, even if we move up or down the knowledge scale randomly, this brownian movement will end up jumping too high, and giving too much power to someone.

So at least we should incorporate an element of respect to such power in our education, our ethics, and try to prevent it from being lost. In my opinion, this kind of thing is most efficiently managed through religion, but current religions do not advance very quickly nor are amenable to "improvements", whereas the idea of scientific religion, to us, now, seems abhorrent and oxymoronic. I believe this might change in the future, though. If science "just works" (and it is indistinguishable from magic), I could picture someone stripping out the "scientific inquiry and skepticism" part, and building a religion on top of the huge building of true scientific facts that we faithfully take for granted.

So in my opinion we have to focus on education. Sorry for the rambling :)

Re: Is Science Dangerous? (2002) [pdf]

#13

Post by daniel-cussen » Tue, Apr 28, 2015, 2:29 PM UTC

eemax wrote: post #6

Of course science is dangerous. The study of atomic physics very nearly led to nuclear war. > Dangers and ethical issues only arise when science is applied as technology. I mostly disagree with this sentiment. If you're a nuclear physicist, and you publish a paper about the theoretical aspects of fission chain reactions, and realize that they may allow for good things, like nuclear power, and bad things, like nuclear…

Szilard, not Slizard. (Technically Szilárd, but definitely not Slizard...though I like that name for maybe a supervillain.)