Science doesn't kill people, Absolute Certainty kills people.

No seriously: Herein lie the perils of Dogma.

This is a very sincere call for sanity and open mindedness for those who seek grand unifying paradigms.

It is a response to the assertion that "Science leads to killing people" by Holocaust surviver Jacob Bronowski, formulated in 1973 . This video is a clip from his famous documentary series: The Ascent of Man, episode 11 - Knowledge or Certainty.

Its not a humorous video, but it will help you to get Richard Dawkins' "Oliver Cromwell's Bowels" joke (see Dawkins explains that the universe is queer).




Pretty heavy, huh. But you have to wonder about the doublethink of that pacifist bomb maker, Szilard (his name even has a bit of JK Rowling "Death Eater" feel to it).

Maybe science's "if it can be done it should be done" approach is not to blame. But then perhaps it's worth pointing out that, even for scientists, the lure of knowledge=power can make good people justify bad decisions.

Talk about messing with the Dark Side!

From JurijD's commentary at http://youtube.com/watch?v=hAg0anPwWbM

Bronowski talks about his friend Leo Szilard, his views on science, ethics and the human condition.

A little background on Leo Szilard: He was a Hungarian-American physicist who conceived the nuclear chain reaction and worked on the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb. As a survivor of a devastated Hungary after World War I, and having witnessed the subsequent terror of the Reds and the Whites, Szilárd developed an enduring passion for the preservation of human life and freedom, especially freedom to communicate ideas.

He hoped that the U.S. government, which prior to World War II had staunchly opposed the bombing of civilians, would not use nuclear weapons because of their potential for use against civilian populations. Szilárd hoped that the mere threat of such weapons would force Germany and/or Japan to surrender. He drafted the Szilárd petition advocating demonstration of the atomic bomb. However with the European war concluded and the U.S. taking heavy casualties in the Pacific, the new U.S. President Harry Truman sided with advisors and chose to use atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki over the protestations of Szilárd and other scientists.

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