When does Knowledge become dangerous? On the issue of 'should scientists study race and IQ? Steven Rose asked, "Are there some areas of potential knowledge that scientists should not seek out? Or, if they do, should they keep the knowledge secret, hidden from the hoi polloi? Certainly Francis Bacon, that great theorist of the birth of modern science, thought so. For with knowledge comes power — potentially dangerous power. In his utopian novel The New Atlantis, scholars determined which of their findings were too dangerous to be shared." To read the full article click on the link.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7231/full/457786a.html
Friday, February 20, 2009
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5 comments:
Good Sahlu, I just finished reading the article and I think I agree with the very last statement that the knowledge itself is not dangerous but its validity. Knowledge obviously becomes dangerous when there are ethical implications.
I think some of the points made by Rose in this article raise important issues to do with science in general.
To reiterate what he says, a research project:
(a) must have a well-founded question
(b) that is answerable using the theoretical and technical tools available (in context, he claims that these criteria are not met for research into IQ and ethnicity)
It occurs to me that this is a good recipe for a successful start to an extended essay in the sciences. The first criterion is met by thinking carefully in terms of the science you already know; the second by considering the resources available in the College, both physical and human.
My IT teacher saied "litle knowledge is dangerous" and i believe that's why we all sake for truth and aske a lots of questions. In our researches i strongly believe that there must be a knowledge that contradicts with our limited knowledge and also it mist be an ambiguous. If there were no an ambiguous questions,then we do not need to do a research. I think that the use of research is to find out truth by experiment.that's why i saied the question must be an ambiguous.
Scientists may study race and IQ but they should not expose it for others.
Chilot,
If I may refine what I believe you are saying, I think it is not the question that should be ambiguous; it is the desirability of a CLEAR question having different potential ANSWERS. Does this make sense to you?
The quotation (from Alexander Pope) you (or your IT teacher) allude to is:
A little Learning is a dang'rous Thing;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian Spring:
There shallow Draughts intoxicate the Brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.
I think this is a fascinating idea - that actually a little knowledge creates problems for us in that perhaps we don't know enough to put it in context. Maybe a little knowledge makes us over-confident and deceives us into thinking we know more than we do. Can you think of any examples of this?
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