The
Glorification of Science and the Reality of Scientific Responsibility
Science has and likely will continue to create consequences
for humans on this earth. There is ample data in the historical record to prove
such. What seems to have gotten lost in today’s world is the glorification of
science without accepting the unintentional consequences of what science
creates.
Some have argued that the answer to the question of “responsibility”
is "no" —that it is not researcher's’ responsibility how science gets used in
society. But that is sophistry. Scientists are responsible for both the
impacts they intend and some of the impacts they do not intend, if they are
readily foreseeable in specific detail; even if they consider the future or
not.
These are the standards to which we are all held as moral agents. If I were to negligently throw a used match
into a dry field (merely because I wanted to dispose of it), for example, I
would be responsible for the resulting wildfire. In contrast, Einstein was not responsible for
the use of his E=mc2 equation to build an atomic bomb and its use in wartime,
though the scientists at Los Alamos were. Or should he?
No comments:
Post a Comment