Dogma or Science, a few words by Jacob Bronowski

A response to Ben Stein's "Science leads to killing people" (http://youtube.com/watch?v=ihYq2dGa29M) formulated in 1973 by Jacob Bronowski. This video is a clip from his famous documentary series: The Ascent of Man, episode 11 - Knowledge or Certainty.

Bronowski talks about his friend Leo Szilard, his views on science, ethics and the human condition.

A little background on Leo Szilard: He was a Hungarian-American physicist who conceived the nuclear chain reaction and worked on the Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bomb. As a survivor of a devastated Hungary after World War I, and having witnessed the subsequent terror of the Reds and the Whites, Szilárd developed an enduring passion for the preservation of human life and freedom, especially freedom to communicate ideas.

He hoped that the U.S. government, which prior to World War II had staunchly opposed the bombing of civilians, would not use nuclear weapons because of their potential for use against civilian populations. Szilárd hoped that the mere threat of such weapons would force Germany and/or Japan to surrender. He drafted the Szilárd petition advocating demonstration of the atomic bomb. However with the European war concluded and the U.S. taking heavy casualties in the Pacific, the new U.S. President Harry Truman sided with advisors and chose to use atomic bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki over the protestations of Szilárd and other scientists.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• morality
• science
• dogma
• a-bomb
• skepticism
• Auschwitz
• certainty
• knowledge
• Ben
• Stein
• evolution
• creationism

[bowman2061]

Religion, the biggest killer of them all.

[ThisRandomGuy]

one of the most powerful moments in the history of television.

[alexasmithy]

some really good stuff here

[archsceptic]

Tomorrow, science will know more than it knows today - which will be true whenever you read this. This incremental building of knowledge is the cornerstone of science and is the antithesis of dogma.

[shockraid1]

When you stop thinking, stop criticizing, and begin to act only on belief, you have opened your doors to fascism. 

[chrisdryer]

the problem isn't the science, or religion... it's the same argument of "Guns don't kill people... people kill people." It will always be up to humans to realize/know themselves and then see themselves in others.

[Chingfordassociates]

A brilliant polymath. The amazing thing about Jacob Bronowski was that he was outstanding in so many fields and that he could perceive links between diverse disciplines. A wonderful educator.

[toddstark]

re: "priestly class of scientists" ... I suppose people can justify any idiosyncratic concept by an appropriately selective interpretation of historical events, but this one requires an especially narrow view of history. We;d have to agree first that the Soviets and the Nazis were doing science in the same social process sense as we use the term today, which they clearly were not by any reasonable interpretation (although they obviously developed technology). The phrase is dishonest.

[narizbola]

@OhmgrownCron No one forgets what was left there, sir.

[CroatAndNettles]

Not good enough...The issue is never dogma or science. After all, the Nazi atrocities were not the result of dogma, they were in large part vicious misapplication of what was believed to be the "science" of eugenics, and a lack of courage by those who knew better. Sadly, we have learned again and again that the priestly class of scientists who define the paradigm separating truth from non-truth often do harm to the human spirit in ways they little understand.

[orp0piru]

@ArmadaOfFloaties People stopped reading books.

[OhmgrownCron]

4:13 - Oh shit, totally forgot that puddle was there...