Is Science Dangerous?

The idea that scientific knowledge is dangerous is deeply embedded in our culture. Adam and
Eve were forbidden to eat from the Tree of Knowledge, and in Milton's Paradise Lost the serpent
addresses the tree as the 'Mother of Science'. Indeed the whole of western literature has not been
kind to scientists and is filled with images of them meddling with nature with disastrous results.
Just consider Shelley's Frankenstein, Goethe's Faust and Huxley's Brave New World. One will
search with very little success for a novel in which scientists come out well - the persistent image
is that of scientists as a soulless group unconcerned with ethical issues. And where is there a film
sympathetic to science?

Part of the problem is the conflation of science and technology. The distinction between science
and technology, between knowledge and understanding on the one hand and the application of
that knowledge to making something, or using it in some practical way, is fundamental.

Science produces ideas about how the world works, whereas the ideas in technology result in
usable objects. Technology is much older than anything one could regard as science and unaided
by any science. Technology gave rise to the crafts of early humans, like agriculture and
metalworking. It is technology that carries with it ethical issues, from motorcar production to
cloning a human.

By contrast, reliable scientific knowledge is value-free and has no moral or ethical value. Science
merely tells us how the world is. That we are not at the centre of the universe is neither good nor
bad, nor is the possibility that genes can influence our intelligence or our behaviour.

The social obligations that scientists have as distinct from those responsibilities they share with
all citizens comes from them having access to specialised knowledge of how the world works,
not easily accessible to others. Their obligation is to both make public any social implications of
their work and its possible applications and to give some assessment of its reliability.

It is not easy to find examples of scientists as a group behaving immorally or in a dangerous

as being inherited, but so too were insanity and any kind of so-called feeblemindedness. They
completely failed to give an assessment of the reliability of their ideas. Quite the contrary, and
even more blameworthy, their conclusions seem to have been driven by what they saw as the
desirable social implications. By contrast, in relation to the building of the atomic bomb,
scientists behaved morally and fulfilled their social obligations by informing their governments
about the implications of atomic theory. It was an enormous engineering feat to build the bomb
but the decision to do this was taken by politicians, not scientists.
The moralists have been out in force telling us of the horrors of cloning. Many others, national
leaders included, have joined in a chorus of horror. But what horrors? What ethical issues? In all
the righteous indignation not a single relevant new ethical issue has been spelled out.

Those who propose to clone a human are medical technologists not scientists. It is not, as the
bio-moralists claim, that scientific innovation has outstripped our social and moral codes. Just
the opposite is the case. Their obsession with the life of the embryo has deflected our attention
away from the real issue, which is how children are raised and nurtured. The ills in our society
have nothing to do with assisting or preventing reproduction but are profoundly affected by how
children are treated.

So what danger does genetics pose? Gene therapy, introducing genes to cure a genetic disease
like cystic fibrosis, carries risks, as do all new medical treatments. There may well be problems
with the testing of new treatments, but are these difficulties any different from those related to
trying out new drugs for AIDS? Anxieties about creating designer babies are at present
premature as it is too risky, and we may have, in the first instance, to accept what has been called
procreative autonomy, a couple's right to control their own role in reproduction unless the state
has a compelling reason for denying them that control. Should the ethical issues relating to the
applications of genetics, for example, lead to stopping research in this field? The individual
scientist cannot decide, for science, like genetics, is a collective activity with no single individual
controlling the process of discovery. It is ethically unacceptable and impractical to censor any
aspect of trying to understand the nature of our world.

Questions 1-6

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1.

In boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true according to the passage

FALSE if the statement is false according to the passage

NOT
if the information is not given in the passage
GIVEN

1) The film industry does not make films about science.  FALSE

2) Scientists do not work in unison when deciding what needs to be researched.  FALSE

3) Parents want to have cloned children now.  NOT GIVEN

5) Many people consider cloning to be undesirable.  TRUE

6) Science and Technology must be seen as separate entities.  TRUE

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Question 7

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS from the passage for your answer.

What influenced the eugenics movement when they were summarizing the findings of their
research? 7) (desirable) social implications

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Questions 8-11

Choose ONE phrase from the list of phrases A - H below to complete each of the following
sentences.

Write the appropriate letters in boxes 8-11 on your answer sheet.

List of Phrases

A work in groups in an unethical way

В was responsible for helping to develop basic trades and skills

С scientists are portrayed as being irreligious

D does not make moral judgements

E become involved in hazardous research

F scientists are seen to interfere with nature

G does not help us to understand how the world works

H is more concerned with ethics than research

9) Technology  B

10) Science  D

11) Rarely do scientists  A

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Question 12

Choose the best answer А, В, С or D.

12) According to the writer, Science shows us

A our position in the universe.