Not All Science and Technology Are Neutral

In Hong Kong, I also talked about my point of view with an editor-in-chief of a well-known media while we were eating. I thought that science and technology could no longer move forward in any case because it had the ability to make mankind extinct. After science and technology had developed so fast today, the extinction of mankind has been not far away. If we are adventurous enough to push science and technology forward, we will push mankind into an abyss beyond redemption.

First of all, the editor-in-chief agreed with the point that science and technology had the ability to make human beings extinct, but objected that science and technology could no longer move forward. He repeatedly stressed that science and technology were neutral, science itself was innocent, and that in the past human beings did not make good use of it. Tut he firmly believed that science and technology were created by mankind and that human beings would eventually be able to take control and make good use of science and technology.

Because I had to catch the train from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and I did not have not a lot of time to express my own point of view, I failed to convince him. Considering that there were so many people holding the same point of view as the editor-in-chief in conversations with friends in the past, I wrote this article in my blog and looked forward to comments from some friends.

When the DuPont Company invented Freon, it discovered that it was a kind of very stable material and an ideal refrigerant, and widely used it in air conditioners and refrigerators. However, it was precisely because of its stability and non-reaction with anything that it could float in air to the top of the atmosphere. There it met the strong stimulus of unfiltered ultraviolet rays, decomposed chlorideions and reacted with ozone, which led to the destruction of the ozone layer.

DDT was once considered to be the best pesticide, because it was safe for people, animals, birds, and was only harmful to the pests. Therefore, Muller, the discoverer of its effectiveness, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. The reason why DDT was not harmful for people, animals and birds was because it did not dissolve in water and would not be absorbed by their bodies. But it is soluble in oil. We all know that people eat oil, birds eat fish, bodies of fish have oil, and then DDT becomes a very harmful thing.

It can be seen that not all science and technology are neutral. As for the above technological products, we had hoped that they would benefit human beings psychologically, but in reality it was harmful.

Why is it so impossible to guard against and difficult to take control of science and technology? This is because uncertainty is an inherent characteristic of science and technology. There is always a part of science and technology that cannot be identified. Even the best scientists, including Einstein and Newton, have had many examples of scientific misjudgment. So do other people!

From other aspects to talk about this issue, we say that science and technology is always right, but people who use it may be wrong, so human beings have problems rather than science and technology. I stress that human beings are a particular species. No matter what kind of good social system, legal system and moral values just play a role in the overall restriction in human beings. It is impossible to ensure that everyone is absolutely rational and does not do extremely bad things. Then we must know that we human beings are not such a perfect species. There are always some irrational people and there are always some people who will do extremely bad things. This cannot be changed! No matter what technological products we make or what scientific research we are engaged in, we face not only the rational people, not just people who are good and kind, but face all mankind. All mankind includes all kinds of people, even people who do bad things. We do not live in a vacuum, scientists do not live in a vacuum and politicians also do not live in a vacuum.

It is only wishful thinking of kind-hearted people to talk about how to grasp research and use of science and technology without considering the inherent characteristics of science and technology, and to talk about how to make human beings become rational without considering inherent human nature. This is a fantasy completely impossible to be realized.

In fact, not all of science and technology are neutral, and at the same time, human beings could never take control of all the science and technology by 100 percent. Mankind would not make rational use of all 100 percent of the scientific and technological achievements. Then, when science and technology develop to the level able to make human being extinct, as long as there is only one misjudgment in extreme science and technology or when those people without a conscience make malicious use of the extreme means just one time, the road of human beings will come to an end. To avoid the rapid move toward human extinction, we must restrict the development of science and technology to a higher level.

Please visit my website at (The human studies in which I have been engaged for the past 30 years have shown that the continued development of science and technology will soon extinguish humanity. It is a matter of life or death and of unparalleled importance to mankind. It is mankinds biggest problem, and we need to wake up in order to save ourselves from extinction. We must achieve great world unification, and the basic conditions are ready. Only we need is to reach an commom opinion, that is the people in the world should wake up.)
