User talk:QTJ/ACExhibits

This page is for longer answers or quotes of things I've already said "officially" and publicly on certain matters, or other exibits from my Q&A on the ArbCom election candidate section.

On Harm
From interview by V. Thomas, June 2001 (here fair use, as the interviewer has already given permission to use the interview for whatever):

The last question I raised [to Jackson] was: "Do you feel that there are any aspects of science and technology that are threatening to you personally, to society, or to the nature of mankind?" [...]

Certainly. Potentially, the most threatening aspects of science, unfortunately, are the scientists. This applies on all of the levels you have inquired about. I do not believe that human beings should divorce themselves from the potential consequences of what they create. If we open boxes, let out the beasts, we should remember our responsibility for containing what we have unleashed. At a very simple-minded level, we can say that atomic bombs are simply the result of nature’s laws, but those laws of nature did not drop themselves upon Hiroshima and Nagasaki without human intervention. Oil comes from the earth itself, but does not migrate in tankers, spill in oceans, and destroy wildlife of its own free will. Twins occur naturally, but sheep do not clone themselves spontaneously, and kidneys do not jump from impoverished donors’ bodies, offer up a bit of cash to their former hosts, and run to the rich as the result of some kidney intelligence or kidney philanthropy. We must never forget that scientists are human beings who make mistakes. Sometimes, they make the mistake of forgetting that their discoveries will most likely end up in the hands of people whose motivations have nothing whatsoever to do with the pure and noble pursuit of knowledge and discovery. Scientists must therefore, in my opinion, always error on the side of caution when they peek into nature’s wicker basket and start pulling out discoveries. How many medications are on the market today that are truly understood? Let us not forget the Thalidomide babies, so that we are not tempted to jump to hasty conclusions as we peer into the cosmos and discover great new things. Even something as simple as a computer mouse or keyboard can, over years, be found to be a hazard. Certainly I am not suggesting that we shut the doors of discovery and run amok with the Luddites, throwing spanners into the cogs of progress. As scientists, however, we must remember to be careful, since there is no science and technology without scientists, and every consequence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki sits squarely on the shoulders of those scientists who peeked into the wicker basket in order to find a widget that would bring an end to the war.