on Scientists, Social Responsibilities

People accuse the scientist of being insensitive to violence etc, but I would say that all the evidence shows that exactly the opposite is true. In the case of the H-bomb it was the politians who asked for it, it wasn't the scientists. However it was said that the Germans would make it first, so there was a certain element of pressure from the scientists. Even so when scientists were instructed to make it two out of five of the leading scientists opposed it. Nearly all of the young people opposed it. I condemn those who agreed, not for any lack of spiritual awareness, but for the fact that they did not see what was involved. The scientists should have known enough about the world of politics to know that the politians would use it.

People are now developing bombs with plastic pellets, so that the fragments can't be detected by a metal detector. When you get down to things like that you don't need much more than a ganster mentality. If one could bring something like a doctors' Hippocratic Oath to bear on it would help, but there is not the same emotional quality attached to science as there is to medicine. Another thing that worries me is that once a sophisticated idea has been found and published it becomes comparatively easy for people to understand it and it ultimately becomes even easier for a large body of people to use it. Once a discovery is out it is just like Eves apple - it is eaten.