Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: What Are the Most Dangerous Lines of Scientific Inquiry?
gbrumfiel writes "The battle over whether to publish research into mutant bird flu got editors over at Nature News thinking about other potentially dangerous lines of scientific inquiry. They came up with a non-definitive list of four technologies with the potential to do great good or great harm:
Laser isotope enrichment: great for making medical isotopes or nuclear weapons. Brain scanning: can help locked-in patients to communicate or a police state to read minds. Geoengineering: could lessen the effects of climate change or undermine the political will to fight it. Genetic screening of embryos: could spot genetic disorders in the womb or lead to a brave new world of baby selection.
What would Slashdotters add to the list?"
All science aspire to make something happen. What this "something" is, is rarely defined. But, once in a while the results from science is a black swan events. That is something that couldn't be predicted, but changes everything.
Why's it gotta be a black swan?! Is that some kind of subtle racism? Something wrong with it being black? Black means it is out of place? You know white people can harbor racist thoughts without being conscious of it, right? Whites were never an oppressed minority so they don't understand this. I know most of them mean well and would never consciously think that way but the sickness is deep. The sickness is deep.
Og may have been first to file, but it was Urgh who invented the method.
are banned in advanced technical civilizations, for good reasons.
Suppose scientific experimentation confirms the existence of the soul, and that we all end up in Hell (or some very unpleasant equivalent), but the older you are when you die, the more painful it becomes? Or, that afterlife is extremely pleasant, better than anything you've ever experienced on earth, and the scientists build a machine that can give you a brief preview of this?
That's right, mass suicides. The population of an entire planet disappeared this way.
I always thought it went along the lines of "...so what would happen if we turned this thing loose downtown?"
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Don't worry, we'll get rid of your gray goo with our black hole ;-)
To be fair, sex causes death. If sex could be prevented we could wipe out the spectre of death forever.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Clearly you've never been to Western Australia, where the black swan is more common than the white!
They're only black on one side. Always facing potential enemies with their black side is a strong survival trait, and why modern Australian swans are almost never killed by drop bears.
You never played the original C&C Red Alert, have you? I double dog dare you to teleport a nuclear weapon with the chronosphere. Don't blame me when it blows up in your face however.
What's the dual use for the theory of gravity?
defenestration
Damn you do gooders! Can't a scientist invent a death ray and enjoy it!