Ensuring the right balance of scientific freedom and security
2 Sep 2013 by Evoluted New Media
History has shown that teasing truth from propaganda during times of war is a tricky business indeed. So it is with some caution that as I write this column I chose to mention that the Syrian government is reported to have attacked opposition activists with chemical weapons.
Some caution, but not much. It is precisely this type of tragic situation where abhorrent weapons like this tend to be used. However, even if the reports turn out to be nothing more than a well-planned disinformation campaign by the Syrian opposition, it has thrown the role of science in these matters into to sharp focus.
Chemical weapons, biological warfare, nuclear weaponry – many would say scientific advancement has been somewhat of a double edged sword for humanity. As our knowledge increases, so inevitably does our technological capability and with that comes the risk that these capabilities will be misappropriated and weaponised.
It is a risk that seems inherently linked with scientific advancement. In this issue we look at how this risk can be managed, and why security services and scientists must collaborate to ensure the right balance of scientific freedom and security is reached.
Science and technology can’t exist in a bubble – human nature simply won’t allow it. Discoveries have a causal relationship – a breakthrough can, and invariably does, start a chain reaction and it isn’t always possible to control where that chain will go. Today’s medical research may well be tomorrow’s biological weapon.
Yet, just occasionally the opposite can be true. The first, and still perhaps the most shocking, use of chemical weapons was of course on the desolate battlefields of the First World War. Originally known as LOST after chemists Wilhelm Lommel and Wilhelm Steinkopf developed a mass production technique in 1916, mustard gas has become synonymous with the Great War – photographs of young soldiers, eyes bandaged each with their hands on the man in front as they are led away from the trenches have etched their way onto our collective memory. Yet, some years later the work of a Yale University group on a variant of mustard gas resulted in the first cancer chemotherapy drug – mustine.
Scientific advancement – it is unpredictable and exciting, yet it is also undoubtedly risky. Safeguarding the benefits it brings has essentially become a task of managing this risk – and a vital task at that.
