Friday, November 04, 2005
Scientific Method
In Frankenstein Conquers the World (1964), scientists find a young boy who they suspect of being related to the Frankenstein monster. If this is true, so the premise goes, then the boy should be indestructible and able to regrow any limb that might be severed from his body. Of course they don’t know if he is authentic, so one of the scientists suggests a method for finding out: they can cut off the boy’s arms and legs, and if he is the monster, then they will grow back. Yeah . . . and what happens if he’s not the monster? He ends up with no arms or legs? What a bonehead idea! But I get the feeling that this kind of approach is not that unusual for scientists. They become so focused on solving a problem that they often ignore the consequences of the solution. I guess they leave that assessment to others.
Though perhaps not exactly like the above example, there are many instances where scientists have seemingly ignored the consequences of their innovations. I have talked about some of them before. Also there is a book I ran across, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (1996) by Edward Tenner. He seems to have done a good, thorough job of collecting and describing a multitude of technological backfires.
Several obvious things leap to my mind: the atom bomb was supposed to end a war and save lives, but it started the Cold War and spread deadly fallout around the globe; DDT was supposed to get rid of pesky insects, but it also killed birds and people; a new kind of feed was supposed to help cattle grow larger, faster, but it may have caused the spread of mad cow disease.
As far as I know, scientists do not have a wonderful track record anticipating problems with their inventions. They really need to work on that. They would do well to incorporate risk assessment into their invention process. Let’s hope they do. All of them. It wouldn’t hurt for them to be more deliberate in their deliberations. People trust them with their lives. And now, with advances in biotechnology, they literally have the fate of the world in their test tubes.
June 2001
Though perhaps not exactly like the above example, there are many instances where scientists have seemingly ignored the consequences of their innovations. I have talked about some of them before. Also there is a book I ran across, Why Things Bite Back: Technology and the Revenge of Unintended Consequences (1996) by Edward Tenner. He seems to have done a good, thorough job of collecting and describing a multitude of technological backfires.
Several obvious things leap to my mind: the atom bomb was supposed to end a war and save lives, but it started the Cold War and spread deadly fallout around the globe; DDT was supposed to get rid of pesky insects, but it also killed birds and people; a new kind of feed was supposed to help cattle grow larger, faster, but it may have caused the spread of mad cow disease.
As far as I know, scientists do not have a wonderful track record anticipating problems with their inventions. They really need to work on that. They would do well to incorporate risk assessment into their invention process. Let’s hope they do. All of them. It wouldn’t hurt for them to be more deliberate in their deliberations. People trust them with their lives. And now, with advances in biotechnology, they literally have the fate of the world in their test tubes.
June 2001
