Realise human potential vs Everything else
Science has the capacity to cure diseases, improve crop yields, reshape the planet and carry us into the cosmos, but is any of that worth the risks? The march of science has improved the lives of some, but not all. And it has inadvertently precipitated a problematic population explosion (see 鈥�The ethics issue: Should we impose population controls?鈥�) and an unfolding environmental catastrophe. As Winston Churchill once said, 鈥淚t is arguable whether the human race have been gainers by the march of science beyond the steam engine鈥� Give me the horse.鈥�
Add to that the development of weapons of mass destruction, disgraceful research such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiments on African Americans, and a few accidents such as the 1978 release of smallpox in Birmingham, UK, and perhaps the ethical thing to do would be to quit while we鈥檙e ahead. We have enough knowledge, surely?
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Science has given us the power to design life, reshape the planet and colonise other worlds. But should we? New 杏吧原创 grapples with the big ethical questions
Not according to Lewis Dartnell at the University of Leicester, UK. Having spent years assembling The Knowledge, a detailed handbook for rebuilding a scientific civilisation after an apocalypse, he thinks there is still plenty of room for more insight. Scientific exploration of the world around us is just what we do 鈥� and it has been the making of us, he reckons.
鈥淭hrough it we serendipitously discover whole new areas of understanding, which then offers the means to build fundamental new kinds of technology,鈥� Dartnell says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think that anyone would argue that we would want to give up now and stop making these fundamental leaps in our understanding that are so helpful to the world.鈥�
But philosopher Massimo Pigliucci of the City University of New York is willing to make that argument. He admits that a lot of applied science 鈥� medical research, for example 鈥� results in social benefit (see 鈥�The ethics issue: Should we edit our children鈥檚 genomes?鈥�). But not all science can be applied, and maybe it shouldn鈥檛 all be funded, he suggests. The idea that scientists ought to pursue whatever stimulates their curiosity because no one knows where the next practical application will come from is 鈥渞eally nothing more than a convenient just-so story鈥�, Pigliucci says. 鈥淚t is odd that a bunch of empirically minded people will not actually be able to produce empirical evidence supporting the idea of unqualified benefits of basic scientific research.鈥�
鈥淭he biggest winner from science has been the military鈥�
The elephant in the room, Pigliucci says, is that scientific and technological advances have allowed us to group into vast nations, and the biggest winner from that seems to have been the military complexes designed to keep one scientifically armed nation from massacring another. The money we spend on military science and its applications far outweighs all other 鈥減ublic interest鈥� science spending, he points out. 鈥淢aybe, before questioning the relatively small amounts we spend on basic science, we should ask ourselves what on earth are we doing with such an oversized military?鈥�
Whatever the pros and cons, we certainly won鈥檛 stop science at this stage of our civilisation, according to Jerry de Groot of the University of St Andrews in the UK. 鈥淚t鈥檚 an intriguing idea, but I can鈥檛 see how it would remotely work in practice,鈥� he says. What鈥檚 more, he adds, any forced scaling back would open science up to potentially disastrous manipulations. 鈥淔unding would be even more subject to political whim than it is now.鈥�
Help! what should we do?
At times, making the ethically right decision can seem impossible. Every course of action is bound to benefit one group at the expense of another, whether it鈥檚 people on the other side of the world or future life forms on a distant planet. So how do we decide what to do?
For Elinor Mason, an ethicist at the University of Edinburgh, UK, the key is to not let ourselves get distracted by the quest for the perfect answer. Imagine we are repainting our house and have to decide on a single colour, says Mason. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not going to interrupt ourselves halfway through and say, 鈥榠sn鈥檛 this all just a matter of opinion?鈥� We have to decide and move forward.鈥�
For Andrew Stirling, a science policy researcher at the University of Sussex, UK, making the best possible decision depends on three key principles: responsibility, precaution and participation. First, experts have a responsibility to drop the pretence that they can be perfectly impartial. We all have a moral perspective, and our collective decision-making only benefits if those perspectives are shared freely.
Second, we have to proceed with caution, as the uncertainties surrounding alternative futures are far too complex to be easily comparable. The fiction that one scenario can be deemed superior to another on the basis of the facts alone is reassuring to policy-makers, but does the rest of us a disservice.
And finally, all members of society should have the chance to participate in debates like the ones outlined on these pages. 鈥淲e shouldn鈥檛 be scared about involving ordinary people in decisions about science and technology,鈥� says Stirling. 鈥淭he technologies we pursue, the innovations we support, the sciences we prioritise, are as genuine matters for democratic discussion as anything else.鈥�
Now that you鈥檝e read the article, let us know what you think about this topic. Where do you stand?
This article appeared in print under the headline 鈥淪hould we鈥� Stop doing science?鈥�
