Scientists and Horror

Posted on October 29, 2006 in Accountability Film War

P.Z. Myers is preparing a show of mad scientist films for Cafe Scientique. There’s two cuts being made here: one against the mentally ill and another against scientists. I think the slam against the mentally ill hurts more because it suggests that we bipolars and peers want nothing more than destruction. When one discovers that the mentally ill are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators, this hockey-masked stereotype disappears rather quickly.

Scientists have little to fear compared to the mentally ill. The former will enjoy remumeration as long as they are willing to sell their talents to the highest bidder. But what can the mentally ill sell? Not a thing. They will continue to be hurt harder by the horror genre than scientists ever will be because their illness is not useful except as an object of experimentation in which they will be powerless over the results.

How can people imagine that scientists are capable of evil? Let’s start with one phrase: atomic bomb. Out of the fruitful search for knowledge have come weapons of mass destruction. To appreciate the power of this kind of science, witness the excitement last week over the invisibility cloak. Though the experts have not managed to bend light yet, they have rerouted microwaves. This incredible feat serves no humanitarian purpose (I’m not buying either the Might for Right myth — and you shouldn’t either after Iraq — or the It’ll-save-us-from-the-Klingons fantasy): no starving masses are going to be fed nor lives enhanced or diseases cured. You can’t blame this on prelates wearing birettas or dervishes clad in burnooses. This is pure secularism and, if realized, will pack a lot more punch than the cry of “infidel”.

If scientists are so moral, what are they doing arming the zealots? For nice salaries and interesting problems. I shall not go so far as to condemn all scientists — that kind of failing is too reminiscent of atheism’s condemnation of religion and I am aware that the Test Ban Movement, for example, had its roots in the disturbed consciousnesses of nuclear scientists such as Robert Oppenheimer who had been touched by Eastern religion — but I shall ask why, when the arsenals are being filled with increasingly potent city crushers are the likes of Dawkins and such not directing their energy at their own, at the abettors of war?

I theorize this: to do so is easier than to turn down the pay.

And we shall continue, despite PZ Myers’ attempts to reeducate us, to fear scientists with good reasons. Maybe they won’t grow a blob or accidentally spark giant-sized ants, but the devastation that shall be wreaked by their inventions shall be considerable unless we can talk them into a moratorium on participation in weapons development.

I dare say you probably won’t see that kind of admission of culpability coming out of the God Delusion crowd any time soon. Ethics will have to be forced from the outside, by unpleasant “fanatics”.