Writer: Brain Guo

Science always involves risk. Whenever scientists have made a great discovery in the field, such as the splitting of the atom or the mapping of the human genome, there has been the potential for that knowledge to cause great harm. Throughout history, some of the most important scientific work has also been some of the most dangerous for those involved in the scientific research. Looking at a few of these scientific experiments or endeavors reveals much about the potential dangers inherent in the scientific field and the gap between what scientists can do and what society tells them that they should do.

One of the most prominent examples of the effects of the atomic age on humanity is the development of nuclear weapons during and after the Second World War. The Manhattan Project brought together some of the brightest minds in physics across the world with the intention of creating a weapon that would end the war between the Allies and the Axis Powers, but which also would be capable of destroying entire cities with a single explosion. The scientists that worked on the project were aware of the significant ways in which their creation would be different from any of the devices that had been constructed by humankind prior to the atomic bomb. As a result, some of those scientists began to wonder whether the bomb should be used altogether once it was constructed, and even petitioned government officials to prevent its use against the cities within Japan. However, those petitions were ignored by those who planned to utilize the weapon to end the war as soon as possible. The bombs that were deployed against the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed tens of thousands of individuals, and caused radiation-related illnesses that would last the survivors for the rest of their lives. Additionally, atomic tests continued to be performed across the world after the war, many of which included areas that were inhabited by individuals who had no say in whether those tests would take place in those areas – from the Marshall Islands to the deserts of both Nevada and Kazakhstan. Beyond the use of atomic bombs as a means of warfare and destruction, there are a variety of other ways in which science and technology have posed dangers to humankind. One of the most direct forms of such danger is the conducting of experiments on human beings without their consent. For instance, scientists in the United States conducted the now-famous Tuskegee syphilis study, which followed decades of leaving Black men with syphilis untreated in order to observe their illness, even after treatment for the illness became available. Furthermore, these types of experiments have occurred elsewhere as well. In several countries during the Cold War, government-funded researchers performed radiation experiments on hospital patients, soldiers, and even children – all without their consent. These types of experiments caused lasting damage not only to the individuals that were experimented upon, but also to the trust that the populations had in the medicine and science in general. In many of these experiments, the researchers utilized careful methods and gained valuable data from the experiments. However, the researchers were willing to use the participants of the research as a means to an end; they believed that the pursuit of knowledge was more important than the rights of those individuals being experimented upon.

More recently, a different kind of danger has emerged from biological research – specifically in the context of a type of research known as gain-of-function research. Gain-of-function research is research that intends to modify pathogens to make them more transmissible or lethal, usually in the attempt to understand the nature of future pandemics and how to best prepare for their emergence. While the supporters of such research claim that it can help the planet and humanity’s general population to save lives, the critics of such research believe that the danger of creating versions of those pathogens that are more dangerous than ever before outweighs any potential benefit that such research may provide. Furthermore, these debates surrounding the safety and necessity of gain-of-function research have intensified following the emergence and spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. Unlike with nuclear weapons, whose production requires enormous amounts of infrastructural and industrial components to create those agents, the production of potentially-dangerous biological agents can be contained within a much smaller research facility, increasing the potential danger of any oversight in the research process.

Taken together, these examples indicate a common lesson regarding the relationship between science and the societies in which it occurs. The knowledge that is developed through science is neutral – the same knowledge that allows for the production of nuclear power plants also allows for the creation of nuclear weapons, for example. The same knowledge of the function of viruses that allows for the development of vaccines also allows for the production of engineered biological threats. It is the framework for the oversight and control of such scientific knowledge that determines whether that science is beneficial or harmful to society. In each of these examples, that framework either did not exist, or was either ignored or overridden by other forces within those scientific disciplines and those societies. In each instance, the scientists were not acting with malevolence. Rather, they were of the belief that their science would lead to positive developments within humanity. This is precisely why these stories are instructive regarding the dangers of science without oversight, control, and accountability. In each instance, the dangerous science was not the result of mad scientists. Instead, the dangerous science was created by the scientists within a framework that did not require them to consider certain factors or to ask certain questions of the populations that were exposed to the science that was created.

Therefore, this has implications for the way that society approaches science today. As the capabilities of science to create new developments in nearly any area of science continues to increase, the question is whether the societies able to oversight such developments are capable of honestly and transparently weighing the potential risks of those scientific advances, especially from the perspective of the individuals who may be affected by such developments and who have a voice in such an assessment. Society today recognizes that the oversight process is both capable of preventing the growth of science altogether, as well as of allowing society to gain the benefits of scientific developments while limiting their potential dangers. Thus, one of the main lessons of the atomic bomb, the horrors of unethical science experiments upon human beings, and the discussions surrounding biological science today is not in the power of science to create massive developments, but in the dangers of allowing science to grow without oversight, accountability, and ensuring that those who are at the risk of suffering from the outcomes of such sciences are permitted to have a voice in those sciences altogether.