• Question: Do you think any form of science is wrong for any reason? and if so, what is it?

    Asked by babybel to Andrew, Emma, Marianne on 21 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Marianne Baker

      Marianne Baker answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hey babybel,

      The thing with scientific discoveries is often not that the actual work or the knowledge itself is wrong, but that people can use it in bad ways.

      Like when the structure of the atom was understood, the work was not intended to be used for killing, but people created the atom bomb.

      I don’t agree with weapons generally; I hate that people kill each other. Sadly often people in power and with money have motives other than saving lives and they have means of getting their own way – science is not about personal gain, it’s about knowledge and advancing. I think that violence is more backwards movement than forwards – we should be more peaceful as we get more sophisticated culturally, I think.

      So it’s not that I think any form of science is wrong, but sometimes people apply scientific knowledge in the wrong ways.

    • Photo: Andrew Maynard

      Andrew Maynard answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      Hi babybel,

      Mmm – I think that there are boundaries that scientists shouldn’t cross, where they infringe on basic human rights. For instance, experimenting on people without their consent is wrong, and sometimes can be wrong even if the people agree. And carrying out science based on an ethically questionable basis I would say is wrong – a good example is eugenics research from the last century, where scientists believed that it was OK to forcibly prevent “undesirable” people from having children. This was just flat out wrong!

      Often though, it’s the uses that science is put to that raise the bigger issues – most of scientific knowledge is morally neutral, but how we use it often raises moral and ethical issues.

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 18 Jun 2010:

      babybel, a blast from the past. Your name makes me hungry.

      Yes. There was a pseudoscience called eugenics which most people think about in terms of the Nazis. This involves selective breeding of people to produce a ‘master-race’. The idea is that you breed out all undesirable qualities by determining who should reproduce with who. It can also mean killing off or sterilising people you don’t want to reproduce.

      I think this is morally and ethically wrong. Plus see what happens to pedigree dogs (health-wise).
      It is recent history:This was only made illegal in Oregon USA in 1983

    • Photo: anon

      anon answered on 21 Jun 2010:

      Hi babybel…science that misleads people into believing life threatening scenarios would be top of my list:)

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