Originally published 20 September 1993
It’s time for scientists to pay their dues, says Dai Rees.
Rees is Secretary and Chief Executive of Britain’s Medical Research Council. Writing in the journal Nature, he makes a startling claim: Science has “contributed massively to human misery” by undermining traditional stable societies without offering any compensating vision of what human life might be.
According to Rees, the sins of science are threefold: two sins of commission, and one of omission.
First, scientific discoveries are inevitably followed by technological innovations that profoundly disrupt prevailing patterns of life. For example, Rees ultimately blames technology for the teeming shantytowns of third world cities and tower-block housing estates of developed countries. Overpopulation, crime, disease, and mindless violence thrive in these inhumane environments, and community support of individuals is almost non-existent.
The excesses of technology cannot be blamed on science, say scientists. Unimaginative government planners are responsible for inhumane housing. The military-industrial complex creates weapons of mass destruction. Bureaucrats caused the Chernobyl disaster. Commercial adventurers destroy rain forests.
Rees thinks these denials of responsibility by scientists are disingenuous. The exploitation of scientific discoveries follows a blind and remorseless logic, he claims. Once set in train, technological progress follows regardless of consequences. Like an acorn planted beneath a building, a scientific discovery grows upward whatever the cost to the edifice above. Scientists must accept responsibility for the application of their discoveries — for good or ill.
Second, scientific discoveries have undermined tradition belief systems that evolved over millennia. The result is a retreat by a large segment of the world population into reactionary fundamentalism, and a rudderless spiritual malaise on the part of the rest.
Rees might have used as an example religion in his own country. The majority Anglican communion has sought some measure of accommodation with science, while the minority Roman Catholic faith has more earnestly resisted the scientific ethos. The result is that there are now more church-going Roman Catholics in Britain than Anglicans.
Again, scientists will claim that the search for scientific truth cannot be suppressed, and that one way or another society — and religions — will have to accommodate what scientists learn about the world. Easier said than done, says Rees, and if it is going to happen, scientists must show the way.
The third sin of science, according to Rees, is a failure to make the priorities of scientific enquiry sufficiently sensitive to society’s needs. He might have mentioned the $10 billion Superconducting Supercollider that high-energy particle physicists want to build in Texas. The machine will create exotic new particles that last for only a tiny fraction of a second. Taxpayers might reasonably ask why they should pay the bill.
Curiosity is a desirable human goal, reply the scientists, and scientific discovery a sublime form of creativity that is worth economic sacrifice. To parsimoniously shackle inquiring minds is to repress that which makes us most human. Rees finds merit in this argument, but insists that scientists should not expect a blank check from society to pursue goals that do not tangibly contribute to the common good.
His own Medical Research Council proposes that science should focus on “distinct and coherent issues central to human life,” specifically:
The planet Earth, its microscopic constitution and place in the Universe.
The biosphere, its health and productivity.
The planet Earth, its condition and its physical resources.
Human health.
Products and processes.
Human and social potential.
Unfortunately, these categories are so vague as to be meaningless, and plausibly include every kind of scientific research done now or in the past. The scientists who developed the atomic bomb almost certainly felt they were making a contribution to human and social potential by more quickly ending the war. It is hard to imagine any kind of research that cannot be justified under one of these rubrics.
Nor will a lot of breast-beating on the part of scientists about shared responsibility for the excesses of technology move us forward. Albert Einstein could not have foreseen in 1915 (when he proposed the equivalence of matter and energy) the sorry outcome of the fire at Chernobyl.
The ultimate prize for which we should work is a science that is integrated into society, says Rees, and he is right. However, the conflict is not between science and society, as he suggests, but between two kinds of society, which for want of better names might be termed Rational Humanist and Religious Fundamentalist (with the latter including the so-called “New Age” religions).
The former society embraces science as a useful ally, and blindly indulges the excesses and flaws of scientific technologies. The latter society is implacably antagonistic towards science, although willing to embrace scientific technologies when it suits its purpose.
The conflict between the two societies will not easily be resolved; its dimensions are over-arching and deep. Until it is resolved, scientists will muddle forward, driven by the same noble and ignoble motives that drive all human endeavors, vaguely conscious of their responsibilities towards society, but uncertain to whom or how they must pay their dues.
