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Ask Slashdot: What Are the Most Dangerous Lines of Scientific Inquiry?

Posted by samzenpus on from the don't-even-ask dept.

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?"

12 of 456 comments (clear)

  1. Screening embryos already happens by abigor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Where I live, certain ethnic minorities (actually, taken together they are actually a majority) are notorious for screening embryos for gender. Then they abort the females until a male is born first. It's become such an issue that it's now illegal to specify an embryo's gender until the window for legal abortion has passed (I don't remember how many weeks/months that is).

    If you're white, the doctor will still tell you if you ask though.

  2. This is bullshit. by bmo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    All forms of scientific inquiry have "dual use"

    You may as well try to go back in time and stop Og or Urgh from figuring out how to make fire.

    Fuck this shit.

    --
    BMO

    1. Re:This is bullshit. by formfeed · · Score: 5, Funny

      What's the dual use for the theory of gravity?

      defenestration

  3. CO2 abstinence only? by JabberWokky · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Geoengineering: could lessen the effects of climate change or undermine the political will to fight it."

    Isn't this a bit like the whole "teaching condoms in school is dangerous because then teens will have massive amounts of sex"? You're omitting a valid (even if imperfect) solution that may help stave off tragedy if people choose a particular path in order to defend and mandate that your "morally superior path" is the only option presented.

    --
    "$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
  4. Nothing... by Solozerk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Once you start blacklisting/limiting the release of scientific information, science is essentially dead. Science should be all about sharing of knowledge, collaborative work, cross confirmation of results. It's not scientists that should handle the 'risks' to society (taking into account ethics) - that's a job for politics (IE, you can publish how to make an atomic bomb but dissemination of nuclear material should be controlled by law). And in any case, any information you try to blacklist will eventually get out. Of course, I suppose there's a limit to that too - if we arrive at a point where a scientific discovery can lead to virtually anyone creating a WMD at low cost and with readily available materials, then there is a problem. But we're not there yet and anyway, at that point, there's no easy solution (though I personally believe a 'solution' should then be more along the lines of changing the root of the issue: why those people would want to create WMD to begin with).

    1. Re:Nothing... by Prune · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have a question for you, which may or may not be one from a devil's advocate standpoint (frankly, I haven't made up my mind yet). It's based on two trivial observations: 1) science and engineering are enablers of increasing reach of influence with decreasing effort, and 2) destruction is generally easier than creation and restraint. Having spelled them out explicitly, I think you know what I'm about to say is the obvious implication: technological progress over time allows an ever smaller group the ability to cause bigger death and destruction upon increasing areas and populations, with countermeasures and constraints lagging behind this ability (human history has been following this trend, where we went from massacring competing tribes to the ability to cause nuclear winter and kill most of the population). Taken to its logical limit, we are going towards the point where an individual will be able to destroy all of humanity (the specific method, be it "grey goo" or bioweapons or nuclear weapons or computer virus when we're all wired or have uploaded our minds into machines are details that don't affect this argument). The fundamental asymmetry of destructive power versus reactive protection schemes mean that even if many attempts are thwarted, eventually one is bound to succeed as time goes on. It seems to me that the ONLY way to deal with it is the most distasteful one--proactive countermeasures--constantly monitoring, privacy and anonymity nullifying pervasive surveillance (be it by people or machines, all the same) that know what everyone is doing at any time. I'm still waiting for a good counterargument, since I would LOVE it if there was a nicer alternative that would satisfy my warm feelings about freedom etc.

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
  5. Here comes the flame war... by xstonedogx · · Score: 5, Funny

    Og may have been first to file, but it was Urgh who invented the method.

  6. Re:The Singularity by ganv · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I that that artificial intelligence that is more effective than human intelligence is the main long term issue. I don't expect it in the next few decades as some do, but sometime in the next 1000 years, someone is going to build a machine that is better at general problem solving and design than a skilled human. And a little while after that, human intelligence will be largely obsolete. This holds by far the most powerful and dangerous possibilities.

  7. Re:In other words... by Radish03 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Why would teleportation lead to the collapse of civilization?
     
    ...he asked, oblivious to the nuclear bomb that had materialized on his coffee table.

  8. The Most Dangerous Field of Study... by monk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is advertising. Perfect persuasion trumps everything else.

    --
    [-- Trust the Monkey --]
  9. Re:Nanotechnology by Jeremi · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Can you say Gray Goo?

    I can say it, but I'm not too worried about it -- most of the available niches for miniature self-reproducing machines are already filled... by miniature self-reproducing machines that are much more aggressive and effective than anything technology is likely to come up with.

    --


    I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
  10. Tasp... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Successfully making a tasp or droud would probably lead to the end of humanity in a generation or so. At least the end of any non-stone-age parts.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire