Slashdot Mirror
Top Physicist Advocates Scientific Self-Censorship
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."
If research is truly dangerous then classify it. But not to research it only leaves you behind when other nations research it.
Shh.
technology has potential to annihilate
...as well as the potential to protect us from annihilation.
I can see it now: "If nanotechnology is outlawed, only outlaws will have nanotechnology!"
Facetious, but nevertheless relevant.
Not all scientists will self-censor, nor are all scientists working toward the greater good. Sometimes it's not their choice (see: Germany, 1940, and Iraq, 1988) to censor themselves.
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
Seems to me if you restrict research, not everybody will comply. This will lead to someone other than ourselves having a headstart on the research. The research will be done by SOMEONE so it might as well be us.
IMO, the main problem with suggesting this sort of restriction is, who restricts? The same research might be considered dangerous to some people and necessary by others. The same apply to "moral", of course. In the end, it's all in the hands of humans. To decide which areas should be restricted, or to use science for evil, or to do evil while doing science etc.
The usual over-sensationalistic /. headline is, as usual, over-sensationalistic. This is not censorship, but self-control and self-direction. It's not about not publishing things which exist and have been researched (that would be censorship), but about deliberately avoiding avenues of research which are too dangerous given our current rather low level of social evolution.
However, it's very hard to decide which avenues of research should be avoided. Biotechnology, Nanotechnology and all that promise great benefits, potentially helping us progress socially much faster (eliminating hunger and disease wouldn't do us much harm socially, would it?). The only ones that should clearly be avoided are clear-cut cases like nerve agents, genetic creation of deadly diseases, and all that. Otherwise, it makes little sense to restrain research in other directions...
Daniel
Carpe Diem
This makes an interesting counterpoint to an article from last week about an editorial by Sheldon Pacotti, one of the designers of Deus Ex. Rees seems to think self-censorship is the best defense, while Pacotti thinks it's best to spread the knowledge far and wide, so that everybody has the information necessary to devise defenses against technological threats.
TheFrood
If you say "I'll probably get modded down for this..." then I will mod you down.
...we would still be living in caves. Seriously, because some things may lead to something which could be warped to 'bad' uses, we should halt the progress of science?
Knowledge on it's own can not be defined as 'good' or 'bad' - it just is. It is what we use the knowledge for that can be judged on a moral level. And what some people consider to be a 'good' use, other people may see as 'bad' or even 'evil' use of the knowledge.
Everything in the world is controlled by a small, evil group to which, unfortunately, no one you know belongs.
People like Einstein dedicated their entire lives to find truth. Find, "The answer". So what's the matter? Can't handle the truth?
There shouldn't be any kind of censorship in this quest for knowledge, and this need to understand. I know I'm sounding like I've mixed philosophy with science, but lets not forget that science is an offshoot of philosophy.
So, just becasue some knowledge may potentially be dangerous, doesn't mean its knowledge we shouldn't pursue. That's like saying "you shouldn't learn how to use a gun, just because you might use a gun to kill someone!"
- Tempestdata
"No decision to go ahead with an experiment... should be made unless the general public is satisfied..." An interesting question is not simply the scientific realities of dooms-day science but the implied obligation of all people to the worldwide community. It seems as the years pass we get closer to having a serious discussion, as citizens of our individual nations, as to whether our responsibilities lie with our own flag or a "global" identity.
addressing the grievances that might cause a certain group to use technology to do harm? Or am I supposed to believe that we are the only rational ones and the rest of the world is full of savages that need to be tamed? Our viewpoint of other countries sounds alot like present day colonialism if you ask me.
Here's some food for thought. If we don't address these grievances, then how can Rees so arrogantly believe that his book is going to make a bit of difference? Does he think that they are incapable of research? Does he think that they are going to say," Gee, Rees wrote a book, maybe we shouldn't use this technology or do our own research." It might slow terrorism down, but it's a stupid price to pay. It will only delay the inevitable UNLESS we address the problems rather than dropping bombs. The only thing that his proposal might do is further along the police state mentality that seems to be moving along quite well here in the US. He certainly won't stop terrorism.
Only outlaws will have science. By restricting access to certain types of research, we limit knowledge in those fields, making it more likely that we will not be able to discover antidotes to technological mishaps. Will it reduce the chance of those mishaps? I doubt it. If the process of scientific discovery was exact and well known, perhaps, but simply limiting information won't stop progress. Who knows where crucial breakthroughs in, say, nanotechnology will come from? If we limit access to scientific knowledge off all fields that might lead to the development of "grey goo" we will stagnate, and won't garauntee that "grey goo" won't get made. All we will garauntee is that we won't know how to fight it if it does get made.
Maybe if we did away with the massive iniequalities that fuel destructive behavior we won't need to limit access to knowledge, because no one will have any reason to destroy. There may still be accidents, but limiting access to information because of possible accidents is like the proverbial ostrich sticking its head in the sand to escape detection. Just because the ostrich doesn't see the lion sneaking up on him doesn't mean he isn't about to become lunch.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I am really getting frustrated by the amount of traction the whole "grey goo" meme is getting.
Sure, it's possible that when nanotechnology gets going, that somehow a nanomachine that can convert just about any material to energy and raw materials to copy itself could be accidentally created. It could then convert the entire Earth and everything on it to copies of itself. It's POSSIBLE.
But then again, it's also possible that some species of bacteria could mutate and start doing the same things. And it's probably not any less likely than a nanomachine doing it.
A machine that could convert just about anything on the planet into useful materials, and duplicate itself endlessly, would probably be difficult to make INTENTIONALLY, let alone accidentally. It would also be extremely easy to insert safeguards to prevent anything like that from happening. Either require the presence of a particular molecule for the machines to duplicate themselves. Add replication limits to the nanomachines. Never include self-replication in the same nanomachine as one that can break down most/all things into raw materials.
Unless nanoengineers are incredibly sloppy, maliciously so, then it's not going to happen by accident.
INTENTIONAL creation of such machines is an issue of higher importance. And the type of people who would make such nanomachines are not the type who are going to listen to people saying "we can't research/develop this technology, it might be dangerous". Would a law against using aircraft for suicidal terrorism have stopped Al Queda from taking down the WTC? Nope.
The best chance at preventing/defending against such actions is to develop the technology and focus some research on using it to prevent such uses. Not saying "stop all research!"
Now, I would be enormously in favor of a global treaty banning research into nanotechnological weapons. The thought of militaries working with such technologies does scare me.
"You know your god is man-made when he hates all the same people you do."
So, what he's saying is, "We could find lots of horrible and dangerous things if we keep researching in this direction, so we shouldn't do it."
What that actually means is, "Since we actually have the kind of restriant not to use this stuff, let's let someone with less restraint come up with it first."
When Einstein gave the US his aid in building an atomic weapon he did it on the principle that someone would discover it, and that it was MUCH better that it be us, than the Nazis. It's much better that we know, and can prepare, than it is for us to be caught flat footed by something so awful we didn't even let ourselves think about it.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
my problem with the point of view being taken by this prominent scientist is that he views all scientific propositions as risky, and there should be some generally agreed upon allowable risk threshold that any experiment should be considered against before it is carried out. The unfortunate thing about this point of view is that it doesn't take into account the potential benefits that could come out of it. Nano-bots destroying cencerous cells would truely make the fact that we live longer and longer much more worthwhile, if those extra years are cancer free, in my opinion. It is probably more worthwhile than creating blckholes on earth, even though the risks might be somewhere in the same range of dangerousness.
my second point, the nihilist one, is in regards to the 'gray goo' that nanotech could turn the planet into. could I stipulate that some sort of evolution could continue, but instead of carbon based cellular processes being the basis, the nanobots would be instead. just a thought.
I find it interesting that this man is an astronomer. I guess he figures that his particular branch of science will never be considered "dangerous" and need to be "limited", unlike those other blighters in physics.
www.eFax.com are spammers
Words to consider before this head-long rush into self-censorship:
In Germany I first came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.
Then I came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
Then I came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then I came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.
Then I came for me - and by that time I was the only one left in the room.
If research is truly dangerous then classify it. But not to research it only leaves you behind when other nations research it.
Hey, if you read the article then you would have understood Sir Martin Rees's reasons for recommending self-censorship. Here's a sample paragraph:
"Some experiments could conceivably threaten the entire Earth," he writes. "How close to zero should the claimed risk be before such experiments are sanctioned?"
He isn't talking about research that has potentially dangerous applications if it falls into the "wrong" hands, he's talking about potentially dangerous experiments. The kind of experiments where something going wrong could, say, create a minature black hole and thus destroy the planet.
When you're talking about an experiment going that wrong then you don't really give a damn who's performing it, "them" or "us".
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Isn't it funny how the US military conveniently forgets Vietnam whenever it wants to? Agent Orange any one?
If memory serves, Agent Orange was a defoliant and not a chemical weapon. It's kind of like complaining about the Orkin man using chemical weapons: technically true but not really what is meant by a chemical weapon. Sure there were probably people in the jungles that were defoliated but its not anything like dropping a nice efficient nerve agent.
I'm really curious about how long it's going to take people to accuse the US military of chemical warfare because so many people are dying of lead poisoning.
-jaded- walking the earth as a living corpse is in somewhat questionable taste
It has also been suggested that Hindenberg was himself 'sabotaging' his own efforts.
Other historians have also suggested that his name may have been "Heisenberg".
"It could form a black hole -- an object with such immense gravitational pull that nothing could escape, not even light -- which would suck in everything around it."
I realize this isn't from you, it's from the article, but the rest of slashdot needs to realize this.
Suppose for a moment that you could replace the sun with a black hole of identical mass. Guess what would happen? Nope, we wouldn't get sucked in. It'd get dark, we'd probably be bathed in some pretty nasty radiation, but we'd still have exactly the same orbit.
Now suppose for a moment that we can warp the laws of physics enough to create an extremely small black hole, on the order of a few grams maybe (more like nano or picograms or smaller if it's in a particle accelerator). It would be a nasty little thing that wouldn't exist very long because there's no way to pump enough energy or matter into it fast enough to sustain it.
Basically, it only has "such immense gravitational pull" within its event horizon, and you need at least a couple solar masses to make a black hole. Last time I checked we didn't have that kind of mass just laying around. As for the strangelet, perhaps I don't have the understanding necessary to see how it could "infect" surrounding matter and compress the whole planet into something smaller than a football stadium. I mean it's not like it's SARS or anything. It's like he's saying "let's take the craziest, kookiest possibilities quantum physics has come up with, and assume they all happen in the worst possible way, etc."
Sixty years ago they were afraid that testing an atomic bomb might rip the entire planet apart, but went ahead with it anyway. They were some pretty smart people. Let's follow their lead.
Perhaps that is the origin of gamma ray bursts: civilizations turning their planets into 100 meter diameter spheres with really powerful particle accelerators.
Sure it's massively unlikely, but it would explain why we SETI hasn't heard anything yet.
Imagine if the first signal we decode is: "don't build a particle accelerator larger than 5 kilometers in diameter or you will destroy your whole world."
a war on terrorism? How can we end a war on a method?
So far there seem to have been a lot of replies complaining that it's silly to abandon research of dangerous topics, because if it's ignored then someone much worse will discover it first. I agree with this almost completely, but I think there are also times when it makes sense once a threshold has been reached where making things worse gains no strategic advantage.
The one I was thinking of was thermonuclear war. Before he died in 1996, Carl Sagan argued in The Demon Haunted World (and probably other places) that the development of the Hydrogen Bomb by the US was strategically pointless, because it didn't accomplish or deter anything that couldn't already be accomplished or deterred by existing nuclear weapons. On the other hand instead of simply destroying an enemy, a thermonuclear war would induce a nuclear winter and wipe out most of the world. Furthermore, there wasn't any intelligence that the USSR was developing it, nor that they would have if the USA hadn't started.
Apart from that I'm not familiar with the whole situation, so I won't go into it further. But I don't think the argument that it's necessary to research ultra-dangerous topics before an enemy does holds up all the time -- especially when the only advance from existing technology is that it leads to a lose-lose scenario instead of a win-lose scenario.
Yes, Agent Orange was an herbicide. But did you know that it wasn't the only one used? Many herbicides were used in the Vietnam conflict, their names coming from colored stripes on their containers. In addition to Orange, there were Agents Blue, Pink, Purple, and White. Once upon a time I had a chart of the effects of these chemicals, because they all had different actions. Agent Orange was a fairly standard defoliant: it made plants lose their leaves and die. The only other one I can remember is White, which made plants go into "growth overdrive" and explode themselves, bringing about disease, rot, and death.
We had a lot of "innovative" weaponry in that era, like the Agents and a personal favorite of mine, antipersonnel mines loaded with slow-burning phosphorus/magnesium pellets instead of steel shrapnel. There were reports of the wounds of victims, who could take days to die, glowing sickly in the night.
Lovely stuff.
Posted with Mozilla
not to draw flame on myself, but....
for once, there's virtually no rational comment to the article (at least out of the top-modded ones).
The point of Rees's statement is not that we must beware of developing a horribly powerful weapon. The point is that in the course of regular experimentation a horrible tragedy can occur. It is not that US must develop the BHM (black hole missile (tm)) before Syria, cause then they'll destroy the world, cause after all, they're bad guys that have black hate in their veins. The danger is that the black hole can happen *accidentally*. Thus, the argument "better us than them" is pointless. It is in no way mitigated by the fact that us refraining from destroying the world doesn't prevent others from doing it.
How real are the dangers of accidentally destroying the universe? If a top british physicist says they're real, i believe him. Virile nanobots? probably not, but its just an example, really.
Can self-sensure achieve desired goal? to some extent, you bet. No "underground organization" is going to build a particle accelerator for high energy physics. This stuff doesn't appear out of thin air, it takes BIG BUCKS. True, some doomsday methods are within easier reach (bio weapons in particular) But at least some of the more dangerous experiments can be avoided.
I repeat, "let's make a black hole before they do!" does not make sense/is not applicable.
Rationality shouldn't be abandoned, even in science. The hope may be faint (i think his 50-50 prognosis is optimistic) but its no reason not to try or to disparage the messenger.
actualy the term depleted in this case means that the fissile U235 and Pu239 has been extracted, leaving only the non-fissile U233. In lay terms you can't use it for nuclear fuel, that's all. Any toxicity inherent in uranium is still present. We use it in anti-tank cannons because the stuff is much better at punching through thin armor than the much lighter lead w/ tungston core AP rounds do.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds