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All Things
The sin of the scientist
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| Isaac Asimov |
In an article published in 1969 with the same title as this one, Isaac Asimov argued that science should be subject to ethical constraints, and analyzed several cases in which a scientific discovery could be considered morally unacceptable. I consider here a few cases, not necessarily the same as those chosen by Asimov, and later will comment on his conclusion.
- The medical experiments with the Jews in concentration camps by Dr. Mengele and other Nazi doctors, or by the Japanese with their American prisoners. Even in such a blatant case, the perpetrators could find an ethical justification on their deeds, arguing that, as their victims were inferior beings who had no right to life, it was right to use them for experiments that could be beneficial to other human beings that enjoyed that right. It is an unacceptable justification, but they probably used it to silence their conscience.
- The two atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. This act of war killed over 200,000 non-combatant civilians. During most of Western history, including the first World War, this would have been considered unacceptable. The justification was that dropping the bombs saved the lives of thousands of soldiers, who would have died if the fighting had been prolonged. Is this enough, or are we again comparing the lives of two groups of human beings, some of which are considered more valuable than others? Anyway, Sergeant Leroy Lehman, who recognized Hiroshima before the release of the bomb, ended his days in a monastery.
- The same argument (that the lives of some human beings are more valuable than those of others) has been used in other circumstances. Sometimes, to increase the strength of the argument, even the human quality of the victims is denied. Some cases are obvious, both in history (slavery) and now (abortion).
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| First atomic bomb explosion in Alamogordo |
In his article, Asimov concluded that there are cases where science has led to morally unjustifiable progress, and pointed at the invention of mustard gas, the first poisonous gas, whose sole purpose was killing human beings. It is noteworthy that the author of this discovery (Fritz Haber) was later awarded the Nobel Prize, not for mustard gas, of course, but for other important findings in the field of chemistry (a process for synthesizing ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen).
The same post in Spanish
Manuel Alfonseca
- Predicting The Scientific Future
Man likes making predictions of the future. Scientists are human beings, therefore they make predictions about the progress to be expected in various fields of research during the coming years, decades and even centuries. These predictions are widely...
- Scientific Fraud, A Danger For Science
Piltdown manFraudulent activity is not exclusive of politicians and the world of finances, though perhaps it is more widespread in those fields. It also affects scientists, who, like every human being, are prone to temptation and sometimes (surprisingly...
- About The Problem Of Evil
The Auschwitz concentration campIn a previous article on the hunting hymenoptera I mentioned the problem of evil, often called the problem of pain, the well-known title of a book by CS Lewis. Although this question is mainly ethical or philosophical,...
- The Mystery Of The Cambrian Explosion
Opabinia550 million years ago, during the Cambrian period, animals appear suddenly in the fossil record. This spectacular phenomenon has been given the name of Cambrian explosion. Why did it happen then, and not before, has been, for over a century, one...
- War And Genocide
Its this time of year again, the season of genocide remembrances and conferences; President Obama went to Turkey and without using the dreaded word “genocide” spoke harshly about the 1915 massacre of Armenians by Turks. It is the time of year to remember...