The Dangers and Morality of Science

by Big Dog 43 Replies latest social current

• 

  Big Dog

  With all the discussion here about the dangers of religion, its morality issues, and so on I thought it would be interesting to have a discussion (especially given the large population of science oriented folks on this board) where we discuss the same issues with respect to science. Now this is not meant to be some I want to go back to the dark ages thread, but more so that recognition that there are moral, ethical, and hell survival issues with Science that need to be addressed.

  Michael Crichton as most know is both a famous author and an extremely bright individual who attended Harvard Medical School, in his novel Jurrassic Park he raised some issues with science and its dangers:

  "Jurassic Park was intended to warn the general public concerning the inherent dangers of biotechnology first of all, but also science in general. Consider this comment from the author Michael Crichton:

  Biotechnology and genetic engineering are very powerful. The film suggests that [science's] control of nature is elusive. And just as war is too important to leave to the generals, science is too important to leave to scientists. Everyone needs to be attentive.(1)

  Overall, I would agree with Crichton. All too often, scientists purposefully refrain from asking ethical questions concerning their work in the interest of the pursuit of science."

  " But now consider director Steven Spielberg, quoted in the pages of the Wall Street Journal: "There's a big moral question in this story. DNA cloning may be viable, but is it acceptable?"(2) And again in the New York Times, Spielberg said, "Science is intrusive. I wouldn't ban molecular biology altogether, because it's useful in finding cures for AIDS, cancer and other diseases. But it's also dangerous and that's the theme of Jurassic Park."(3) So Spielberg openly states that the real theme of Jurassic Park is that science is intrusive."

  "The movie Jurassic Park directly attacked the scientific establishment. Throughout the movie, Ian Malcolm voiced the concerns about the direction and nature of science. You may remember the scene around the lunch table just after the group has watched the three velociraptors devour an entire cow in only a few minutes. Ian Malcolm brashly takes center stage with comments like this: "The scientific power....didn't require any discipline to attain it....So you don't take any responsibility for it."(5) The key word here is responsibility. Malcolm intimates that Jurassic Park scientists have behaved irrationally and irresponsibly.

  Later in the same scene, Malcolm adds, "Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet's ever seen, but, you wield it like a kid that's found his dad's gun." Genetic engineering rises above nuclear and chemical or computer technology because of its ability to restructure the very molecular heart of living creatures. Even to create new organisms. Use of such power requires wisdom and patience. Malcolm punctuates his criticism in the same scene when he says, "Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should." http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/probe/docs/jurassic.html

  Any thoughts on this? Do you see science as all good, no downside, or do you see moral and ethical issues that should make us ask not can we do this, but should we?
• 

  Narkissos

  Science sans conscience n'est que ruine de l'âme -- Science without a conscience/consciousness is nothing but the ruin of the soul.

  François Rabelais (a physician), in 1533...
• 

  Big Dog

  Cloning is an issue that comes to mind, I can't really see the need for cloning human beings and to be quite honest, the idea of it creeps me out, not to mention I could see some ethical issues with it.
• 

  heathen

  I think to humans it's important to understand how things work and that's what science does mostly . When there was no science it just left the door open to superstition as many primitive cultures could not understand the physical universe . I think there should be a moral code that prohibits the cloning of humans but from what I see there is no moral code as we've seen science also device ways to kill thousands of living people in seconds . It's like people that are apalled at stem cell research but yet have no problem with contraceptives that kill the stem cell to prevent pregnancy . We know the idea to clone people is mostly intent to harvest organs , so even if these beings are born without a soul there wouldn't be a problem .You know they just have to try at some point whether it's in the US or over seas ,somebody is trying it in secrete .
• 

  seattleniceguy

  Hello Big Dog,

  Science does not have morality. Humans have morality.

  To understand this, consider that the word "science" is interchangeable with the word "knowledge." Science is merely a method for increasing our knowledge of the natural world.

  Increased knowledge always necessitates increased responsibility, whether that knowledge is scientific or otherwise.

  For every new discovery, there are immediately new applications both "bad" and "good" available. I enclose those in quotation marks because they are subjective decisions made by humans. For example, when humans learned to create fire on demand, they had new knowledge, a new technology, at their disposal. Was this knowledge inherently "good" or "bad"? No, of course not. Could it be used for both constructive and destructive purposes? Sure. You could warm your family with it or burn down the neighboring village. The knowledge does nothing of its own accord. Humans must consider the new knowledge and carefully decide how they will use it.

  With regard to tools such as the atomic bomb or genetic engineering, it is not "science" that uses or misuses these things. Science is the method that discovered what would happen if we split atoms, but science did not dictate that knowledge being implemented into destructive technology. That was a political decision. It could never have happened without a nation standing behind the decision, pouring money and effort into it. Science did not accomplish this - the United States of America did (and several other countries since).

  Similarly, as we enter the new frontier of genetic engineering, science presents us with new possibilities, new knowledge. Going forward, it will be our responsibility as ever more knowledgeable humans to make decisions about how to use what we know. Rather than stand back helplessly and decry the march of science, we must become actively involved citizens who are a part of the discussion about how to proceed with the new knowledge. Morality and ethics are necessarily human - not scientific - concepts.

  SNG
• 

  DanTheMan

  You know they just have to try at some point whether it's in the US or over seas

  Here in the US we have an increasing number of "Creationist" museums and an untold number of religious crackpots who all but demonize the very word "science".

  In China, science is celebrated and promoted by the state without reservation.

  Doesn't bode well...

  I just took a midterm exam for a science class I'm taking at a community college. It was so easy, it was sad. Really. It would be 7th grade material in China.
• 

  Big Dog

  SNG,

  Knew you would weigh in and you bring out a good point, I probably should have said Scientists, rather than science, but really isn't that the same arguement that one could make for religion, religion isn't inherently good or bad, its what people do with it? But I digress, I wanted this to be a thread about science, and now SCIENTISTS, and morality.

  But do you think there are places we shouldn't go with science? Things that don't need to be tampered with or are too dangerous or raise too many ethical questions?

  I did like the line where it was stated war should not be left to the generals, should science not be left to the scientists?

  Do you feel many scientists are amoral or even immoral in their pursuit of discovery?
• 

  heathen

  Burning down the neighbors village was not always an evil thing either .LOL Not when jehovah of armies told someone to do it anyway. The interesting part is watching these people that claim to have morals and don't can't justify the act of cloning humans . There is nothing wrong with the old fashioned way of bringing humans into the world tho .
• 

  seattleniceguy

  But do you think there are places we shouldn't go with science? Things that don't need to be tampered with or are too dangerous or raise too many ethical questions?

  My basic answer to whether there are things that we should not discover is, no. We should not be afraid of knowledge. And trying to prevent something from being discovered by someone else is a futile endeavor.

  However, that being said, there are many things that we would like to know but presently there is no ethical way to discover them. There are all sorts of questions that could be easily answered at the cost of a few human lives in an experiment. For example, in linguistics there is the question of whether a totally language-less group of humans would spontaneously create language without any other input. There is some evidence that suggests they would, but in order to find out for sure, we would have to raise a group of children in a totally language-less environment and then leave them there to reproduce for a few generations and see how the population was doing in 50 or 100 years. Clearly, this is ethically totally unacceptable. So we'll have to be content not knowing the answer for sure. Therefore, scientists must adhere to a strong code of ethics when determining how they will perform experiments. Critically, note that we are limiting the methods of learning, not the subject matter.

  Generally speaking, I think that the pursuit of knowledge should not - and in most cases cannot - be limited. However, ethics are required in deteriming the methodology of the science, and in the application of the new knowledge.

  SNG
• 

  Big Dog

  I think that the pursuit of knowledge should not - and in most cases cannot - be limited. However, ethics are required in deteriming the methodology of the science, and in the application of the new knowledge.

  SNG,

  You are saying no knowledge is inherently "good" or "bad", it just is knowledge, the problem is in the application and method. I would go with that to a point, except, I'm trying to see how I can be neutral about say, atomic weapons and the knowledge to build them, I'm trying to see nukes as a neutral thing and I'm having a hard time with it. One could say nuclear weapons are a by product of nuclear engineering or atomic science, I'm not sure who claims credit for nukes, but its a pretty nasty by-product of that knowledge. Or let's say an engineered ebola virus with a 99% mortality rate that's airborne, again, I'm trying to see this as a neutral thing, its just knowledge but I'm having a hard time with it, or even, why in the world would a human being spend hours in a lab to create such horrors?

  Basically then you are making the same arguement that pro-gun people make, knowledge doesn't kill people, people kill people. But where are the people railing against these sorts of applications of science? I don't see a bunch of Ph.d.'s in lab coats on the sidewalk protesting weapoons development and the like.

  The other truism seems to be, well, if we don't do it, someone else will. Hmm, not sure I find that a real "moral" arguement for the advancement of some areas of science.

  Chricton made one interesting point in his novel where he likened scientific knowledge to a gun, he said, typically you don't see a karate master out on killing sprees because it took them years of training and discipline to master their skill and therefore they were respectful of its power, where as with science you stand on the shoulders of giants, its like a loaded gun, you need no training, no discipline to wield it, you just pick it up and start shooting. As science advances you pick up what others have done and run with it, but do enough questions get asked like where is this going, what are the possible outcomes of this knowledge? Can humans be trusted with such knowledge? If there is no God, no built in conscience of divine origin, or rules handed down from above, who decides what is moral and what isn't? What measuring stick do we use? Do ends justify means?

  Or, let's as you stated talk about methodology, what about animal testing? Tetra makes the point that if you believe in evolution, we are just big brained apes, does that give us the right, the moral right to do what ever we want to our evolutionary cousins that weren't as fortunate to develope such advanced cognition skills? If we are not "special" in the way christians think humans are special then what gives us the right?

  People are always ranting on this board about how dangerous reglion is, well, what about the products of science? When did religion ever give its followers the ability to vaporize 100,000 people in the blink of an eye? Science/knowledge/scientists whatever label you want to use have opened up wonderful benefits to mankind in the last century, but they/it also gave us for the first time the true ability to eradicate ourselves as a species, and put that power in the hands a very small group of people. Does the good really out weigh the bad?