Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site utcs.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcs!shindman From: shindman@utcs.UUCP (Paul Shindman) Newsgroups: net.religion,net.flame Subject: Re: Re: A Conversation With Sir John Eccles (tired of Rosen!) Message-ID: <322@utcs.UUCP> Date: Mon, 7-Jan-85 20:47:29 EST Article-I.D.: utcs.322 Posted: Mon Jan 7 20:47:29 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 7-Jan-85 21:40:48 EST References: <79@decwrl.UUCP> <345@pyuxd.UUCP> <205@philabs.UUCP> Reply-To: shindman@utcs.UUCP (Paul Shindman) Organization: University of Toronto - General Purpose UNIX Lines: 27 Summary: In article <205@philabs.UUCP> jah@philabs.UUCP (Julie Harazduk) writes: > >There definitely is something to it. It's not necessarily limited to what >Eccles and Popper have said, either. A responsible position must be taken by >all scientists because, in many ways, science has gained the confidence of >the masses in the way that religion once had it. Any (and I mean ANY) group >with that kind of influence must be monitored and must be held responsible >for the possible results of their influence (discoveries and announcements). Yikes!!! So whom do you propose will be encumbered with the responsibility of monitoring the scientists??? What will be the penalties if those "...results of their influence" are used for not-so-nice purposes (and who decides what ain't-so-nice???)??? It would have been really interesting to see a jury of humans sentence Einstein and dozens of other physicists to {life in prison|silence|death} for their work in relativistic and quantum physics since it all resulted in the A and H bombs. Yes, it would be really nice to keep a nice, rational, reasonable eye on the goings on in several thousand fields of research, but it can't (and should never) be done. The inevitable result would be that you would have the world's largest bureaucracy ever created, and thousands of Galileo's locked behind bars. Egads, if you are going to make ginourmous sweeping statements, Julie, at least back them up with something! Remember that it was the Church that locked Galileo's mind away (and do you remember why???)