The most ingrained contemporary mistrust of the intellect is visited, in these movies, upon the scientist-as-intellectual.

Transcription

1 The most ingrained contemporary mistrust of the intellect is visited, in these movies, upon the scientist-as-intellectual. But it is not enough to remark that the scientist is treated both as satanist and savior. For his sphere of influence is no longer local, himself or his immediate community. It is planetary, cosmic. Susan Sontag, The Imagination of Disaster (1965)

2 Besides these new anxieties about physical disaster, the prospect of universal mutilation and even annihilation, the science fiction films reflect powerful anxieties about the condition of the individual psyche. Susan Sontag, The Imagination of Disaster (1965)

3 He has not been converted from human amiability to monstrous "animal" bloodlust, as in the old vampire fantasy. No, he has simply become far more efficient the very model of technocratic man, purged of emotions, volitionless, tranquil, obedient to all orders. Susan Sontag, The Imagination of Disaster (1965)

4 There is absolutely no social criticism, of even the most implicit kind, in science fiction films. And, typically, when the fear of science is paramount the evil has no attribution beyond that of the perverse will of an individual scientist. The image derives most of its power from [an] anxiety about the depersonalizing conditions of modern urban society. Susan Sontag, The Imagination of Disaster (1965)

5 You Look Like a Movie Why Science Still Needs Its Critics Matt Walhout Professor, Physics & Astronomy Dean for Research and Scholarship Calvin College

6 George Lucas George Lucas Creator of Star Wars movies Imaginary wars & Imaginary robots Professor of Ethics U.S. Naval War College Real wars & real robots

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8 George R Lucas Jr Military Ethicist Lucas teaches ethics to officers from all four branches of the US military. Q: What ethical questions do you address with your students? Lucas: The big questions in military ethics are policy questions such as, "do we go to war?", and some of my students think these questions are somebody else's job. But that's not exactly true. Just as doctors talk about their moral obligations, so should soldiers. (From an interview with Institute of Physics in 2014.)

9 To pick up on this idea: Just as doctors talk about their moral obligations, so should research scientists and STEM students.

10 Concerns about the trustworthiness of science and scientists Research ethics

11 Rough summary of the main themes for today: The Atomic Bomb led to: (1) risk of leaders with bombs / fears of nuclear war; (2) risk of radiation exposure / fears of genetic mutations; (3) risk of computerized missile systems / fears of computerization; (4) risk of losing control or agency / fears of dehumanization. The image of science as amoral compounded the fears. The risks are still with us; some of the fears have been realized. Moral concepts of human personhood and dignity are at stake. The image of science (or scientists) as amoral is not sustainable.

12 Mentally unstable leaders A morally stunted science advisor An irreversible nuclear first strike A computer-networked Doomsday device

13 Was the Dr. Strangelove scenario far from reality? Three Looks at the Arms Race Nuclear weapon systems have been subject to accidents and susceptible to false triggers. There is no guarantee that they would work if needed. Longstanding disagreement over the viability of national missile defense system. Arms race required big investments in computers. Chernobyl accident; ongoing political suspicions; failed Reagan-Gorbachev deal at Reykjavik summit in Star Wars (SDI) continues.

14 Cold War Perils: Nuclear Annihilation

15 Cold War Perils: Nuclear Annihilation, Machine Intelligence

16 Nuclear superfuze renews tensions between US and Russia.

17 New York Times

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19 The Rise of the Genome: Human Genetics after the Bomb George Sarton Memorial Lecture, sponsor: History of Science Society, AAAS Meeting, Boston, MA, 2/18/2017 * University of Pennsylvania After atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (August 6 and 9, 1945): Japanese locals: unmarriageable, unemployable, sick; yet key to exposure studies. President Truman: created the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission; President Eisenhower: Atoms for Peace; exposure risk had to be understood. James V. Neel (U. Mich geneticist): headed up research in Japan and global expeditions* to study various populations and collect blood samples. Beginnings of big-data sampling and genetic mapping for global public health.

20 Cold War Perils: Nuclear Annihilation, Machine Intelligence, Genetic Mutation Marvel Comics 1962

21 Bioethics and Biocitizenship Genomic Experiments, Engineering, Commercialization, and Politics

22 Susan Sontag The Imagination of Disaster (1965) These [science fiction] films reflect world-wide anxieties, and they serve to allay them. They inculcate a strange apathy concerning the processes of radiation, contamination, and destruction that I for one find haunting and depressing. The naïve level of the films neatly tempers the sense of otherness, of alien-ness, with the grossly familiar.

23 Science magazine, March 24, 2017

24 George Church Emmanuelle Charpentier Jennifer Doudna Feng Zhang

25 Can science and technology redefine what it means to be human? Will traditional concepts of personhood be eclipsed?

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29 The acts of men will gradually destroy them I am merely the logical means of this destruction.

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34 Birth of the social contract for science Est. 1950

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36 The standard picture is of people trapped by an anonymous and autonomous social order or societal machine or by a vast purposeless play of uncontrollable fortune. Robert Pippin, No Good Reason, The Point Magazine, thepointmag.com.

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