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Top Physicist Advocates Scientific Self-Censorship

Posted by michael on from the slow-down-cowboy dept.

spamania writes "The San Francisco Chronicle is running this article about a new book by Britain's astronomer royal, Sir Martin Rees, that advocates restricting scientific research in certain fields in the interest of public safety. In "Our Final Hour", Rees lends a sober, respectable voice to the oft-irrational ranting about nanotech, biotech, and other fields."

4 of 355 comments (clear)

  1. Here's some news by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Everyones favorite drunken crackhead pile of trash, and hero to black people young and old, is at it again.

    Here's looking forward to the new round of race riots. Surely it's a white conspiracy, and not his own disregard for others safety that got his ass beaten down so many moons ago.

  2. Aargh: scientist != philosopher! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait
    How many times do we have to see this shit: scientists (famous or not) that have some opinion about topics about which they know just about as much as any other bloke! Scientists suffer from the illusion that their analytical skills make them much more intelligent than other people, but this is an illusion: I know a bunch of dumb scientists. At least he's talking physics, and not philosophy in general...

    Stupid.

  3. Re:Not censorship by subzero_ice · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    How stop doing research in the field of weapons of mass destruction. US has more weapons than anybody else and they sell it to assh*$#s like Saddam Hussain and then waste money on war to destroy them. To begin who asked you to develop them and even if you did sell them to Saddam.

  4. Re:Don't restrict, classify by Citizen+of+Earth · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    If research is truly dangerous then classify it. But not to research it only leaves you behind when other nations research it.

    And it leaves you *dangerously* behind when these other nations are "bad guys". Not only will you not have comparable weapons for a deterrence to the nano-tech gene-mutation bomb which spontaneously turns you into a Communist, you will also not have any defenses against it. This is why the West still has plagues and pox's in a bottle, despite the wishes of the rainbow-flag brigade that secretly wants to kill us all.