I always thought that science was the guiding force for humanity that it held the actual facts and the truth of a situation or idea together. It is the one thing that we can trust in and depend on to present the facts to us and allow us to make a considered decision.
And yet where has science got us? I guess the big achievements you might list are getting man to the moon and back, working out the size and nature of the planets in our system and how there are many more systems out in space. Working out the size of the universe, working out all of the minor details of the building blocks of our world like elements, molecules and compounds and studying these hour after hour trying to work out how they are connected to each other and our world around them. Science has discovered life-altering medicines and medical procedures that save so many lives on a daily basis and do so much good for humanity. I guess these are the feel good achievements and things you might list on the other side as big achievements. Achievements by science however like the nuclear bomb are definitely not the proudest of humanities achievements. A bomb that can wipe out a whole city with the flick of a switch, chemical warfare like tear gas or agent orange that can wipe out a jungle ecosystem in one pass of the aircraft, the various poisons that we use to kill other animals from a bit of mortein to get the blow fly to the 1080 used to kill foxes and feral pigs-anything we can shoot at including ourselves. Science has also discovered petrol and diesel, substances that allow us to get around in cars and trucks while pumping massive amounts of toxic fumes into our own atmosphere.
So why is there a good and evil side to science? How can it be used for such selflessness but also such selfishness? Could it be that it is just reflecting the whole of the human situation and that we all struggle with that good vs evil question with in ourselves? We all ask that question at some point in our lives “am I good or am I bad”, even if it is very rarely and usually only when our conscience is playing on us?
So if the question of questions is am I good or am I bad and if science is the factual truth about everything in our world, then the next question is, can science save the world by providing us with the factual information that explains our predicament? It just makes sense and is logical that science is where the answer will come from and if it doesn’t then what is science good for?