"The optimist
thinks this is the best of all possible worlds.
The pessimist fears it
is true."
J. Robert Oppenheimer
In
the beginning of the 20th century, scientists of the ranks of Einstein, Bohr,
and Heisenberg perceive the field of physics in a manner that drastically
removes it from common sense and basic understanding. As a result, physics
becomes irrelevant to most people and those with a clear interest in the
subject are not many. At that time, the individual scientist working alone or
with a few coworkers in a small lab represents the dominant mode for the
production of scientific knowledge. With the onset of the World Wars and the
development of nuclear physics, however, the situation changes. In Europe,
government support for potentially useful research is evident in the First
World War and during the years after the war. In the early 1930s, the
transformation in the political climate in Europe and the rise of new
ideologies, such as fascism in Italy and socialism in Nazi Germany, are the
reasons for many of the Central and Eastern European scientists to emigrate to
Britain and USA. They ultimately become the people who bring to the new world
this idea of large-scale projects, like the one of a possible nuclear bomb,
which can aid in ending the war.
These
projects, though, need enormous amount of funds that go beyond the ones
available in corporation labs. Research begins to necessitate large
installations and expensive equipment, increasingly beyond the resources of
individual experimenters or even universities or private research facilities.
As a result, government initiatives to exploit scientific theory for practical
ends do appear on the scene. Governments begin to support scientific research,
and in the years before the Second World War this is a major task for the
socialist society in Nazi Germany. Somewhere around that time, the idea of
science not as means to improve the human condition, but as a method to find
new ways of destruction starts to form in the minds of many.
The
Manhattan project and the development of the atomic bomb is a perfect example
of the new way of doing science: the industrialization of scientific production
or what has been called Big Science. The idea of an atomic bomb that could
result in complete devastation becomes evident in the 1930s. In 1939, Lise
Meitner, an Austrian physicist, who has immigrated to Sweden escaping Nazi
Germany, proposes a theoretical explanation for fission and calculates the
immense amounts of energy that in principle could be released form an explosive
nuclear chain reaction. The Allies recognize the caustic potential of such a
weapon and further, they realize that Nazi Germany most probably is in the
process of developing one. This launched the largest science-based Research
& Development venture in history: the one that resulted in the creation
of a weapon that could potentially make the entire world history.
When the Little Boy and the Fat Man
are dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, no one is truly prepared for the
resulting devastation and total annihilation of everything and everybody. The
fear that science and technology could be used for nefarious purposes suddenly
becomes a reality. While in the past science was accepted as the way to rise
against and fight superstitions and “backward thinking,” following the first
several decades of the 20th century, science becomes the root of all
evil humans must be wary of. There have since come many ready to exploit the
situation and denounce any positive aspects of scientific and technological
advancements while preaching for a return to times of superstitions and
knowledge based on beliefs and what feels right, rather than facts. I always
knew that the hidden and true meaning of the Descent of Man had to do
with the fact that one day, the human race would simply go backward in time
instead of fully aspiring to being the only “civilized” creature on Earth. Carl
Sagan might have been inspired by science as a candle in the dark, but it is
pretty clear even to him that somehow, unfortunately perhaps, people are once
again finding themselves in a demon-haunted world created by those benefiting
by such a world.
On that note, it is important to
emphasize that the Second World War did not simply result in the development of
many weapons of mass destruction. The conflict also gave a push to a number of
other government-funded, applied-science projects, such as radar, penicillin production,
jet engines, and the earliest electronic computers. The use of the atomic bomb
warned many that humans are capable of destroying the whole world if not
careful, but at the same time, it also succeeded in dramatically ending a war
that claimed the lives of millions. Ultimately, the problem is not with
science; the problem lies in the hands and minds of bipeds who have no brakes
when it comes to their desire to rule the world.
- Krasi
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