Homely Scientist

On my bacteria making hydrocarbons post, Dave commented on what if something hadn’t been discovered or had been discovered by a different person…how would things be different.  Which leads to ethics and science.  Both Einstein and Oppenheimer decried the use of their discoveries.  Yes, Oppenheimer is noted as “the father of the atomic bomb”, but he also didn’t want the world destroyed either.  Nobel invented dynamite, but was so morally devastated by its use that the Nobel Prize was created.

We scientists often discuss how discoveries are ethically “neutral”, it is their use that matters.  Is that entirely true, though?  Are all discoveries neutral?  I would say they aren’t.  Nuclear power, has both good and bad uses.  However regardless of the use, the waste and radioactivity left behind is not good.

Electricity, lots of good there, and bad.  Silly putty … as failed synthetic rubber (I’ve also heard plastic explosive).

But what if Gandhi, and not Einstein, discovered E=mc^2?  Would it have come to the same end?  Would The Bomb have been made?

What if gunpowder had never been discovered?  Or petroleum?  What about something as seemingly innocuous as the colour mauve (the book Mauve is an amazing read, do look it up)?  Mauve was the first human created colour.  The aniline dye, which gave us mauve was invented by Sir William Perkin gave us the whole petrochemical industry…plastics, medicines, everything.  He was a very, very interesting man.

Consider then, what, if undiscovered, would change.  Perhaps, even the smallest change would do that.  Of course that’s where Chaos Theory (and the book Chaos another recommended read) comes in … and that’s a post of a different colour (pun intended).

Books:
 

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