Nov 12 2008
Mad Scientist - Conclusion (Part 3)
So, a world-conquering scientist is somewhat unprecedented and they seem ill-suited to do so later. Mindless violence doesn’t make a great deal of sense, but could a “mad scientist” do terrible things and, if so, under what circumstances?
The answer is, of course, yes, a scientist can do terrible things. They are not superhuman or without flaw. They are generally prone to the same failings as the rest of the world and have had more than their fair share of a few of them. Dr. .Mengele is a case in point, a “researcher” using his science as an excuse to fulfill psychopathic tendencies. I hesitate to call him a researcher turned madman but suspect, rather that he was a madman who happened to be a scientist in an environment where he was encouraged to indulge his most depraved tastes. But, however I slice it, he was a villain and a scientist.
What else?
Well, scientists could be and have been coerced or bribed to do contribute to terrible technology. Coercion could be direct and overwhelming compulsion - like direct threats of harm to self or family - or it could be just a tenuous threat where the scientist believes that he would put himself at risk if he refused to cooperate. Bribery can, of course, be monetary, but it can also be a dream or research held out as an incentive to get a scientist to do something else. An example of this sort of thing (probably aspects of both bribery and coercion) is von Braun, a man dedicated to the notion of space travel (which he helped to bring to fruition in the US), but also responsible for devastating rocket weaponry in support of Nazi Germany.
Or a scientist could work toward a dream or a cause he or she really believed in, and, in doing so, contribute to something horrible. For example: the Manhattan Project. Whether nuclear weapons were justified in World War II or not, most, if not all, of those that developed them believed that the development was necessary if only to ensure the US had the weapon before Germany and/or Japan. Interestingly enough, those same scientists were among the most vocal in their disapproval of the use of nuclear weapons. Even today, scientists may have the highest percentage of anti-nuclear weapon folks outside of Japan, but that’s a genie that we’ve never managed to put back in its bottle.
It is not impossible, of course, that a scientist would become enamored with a cause (the cause could even be a good one) and do something heinous. Additionally, a scientist could create something that could be readily misused in a terrible way. It’s happened. Although scientists are generally taught to think critically, many are experts in one field and - forgive me - idiots in other fields, but not necessarily cognizant of that deficiency. Many scientists are prone to egoism and that could readily be manipulated. Many are gullible at least outside their area of expertise. Let’s face it, they have weaknesses
But, in none of these situations do we find a stand-alone scientist destroying the world. A psychopath can cause damage, but he’s unlikely to have the kind of influence to do horrible things outside a small sphere of influence. Or science and scientists can be used by someone unscrupulous or even someone principled to do horrible things. But the scientist is unlikely to be calling the shots or be directly responsible for the result of his labors.
Science is a field with built in ethics, where scientists deliberately criticize each other in order to ensure what we say makes sense and fits the data, that it’s good. Science is a field where critical thinking goes hand in hand with success, which all but negates many thoughtless kinds of violence or mayhem. It promotes education, the antithesis of those that like to control people. We know we’re fallible, hence our own checks and balances and, generally, no one scientist does it all alone, limiting the influence of a bad apple. We’re arrogant and sometimes slow to adapt to change. We are intransigent when we feel we’re right. But then, we have the data.
Most of us aren’t in it for the money (haha! like someone goes into science for glory or money - or, if they do - that they were thinking clearly). Most of us want to make the world better with what we do. We’re not omniscient and we’re not without flaw, but we try, as a whole, to contribute with a minimal profit motive.
That mad scientist out to destroy the world, well, I don’t see it.
And that means, however prevalent you might find him (or her) in comics books and other speculative fiction, you are quite unlikely to find it in any of mine. If I were you, I’d avoid it, too. I’d also remember that we’re not out to scare you, in our white coats; we’re just doing the best we can.
You make some very good points.
The standard mad scientist did always strike me as a bit silly. On the other hand, you might have the well-intentioned one just going the wrong way; the negative effects of his research might just be side effects of a better goal he’s trying to accomplish, and for whatever reason–stress, apathy, a moral code that doesn’t overlap too much with the rest of the world–he’s just ignoring or writing off the collateral damage to focus on his greater goal. From my own experiences as a biology major, I think I can safely say that the sciences select for a bit of an obsessive streak; how else are we going to maintain our patience through the perpetual failures of standard labwork?
In other words, malice may not a sufficiently antagonist-quality scientist make, but I could see apathy doing it.
This was a very interesting series of musings. It’s interesting to me that the “mad scientist” remains the a villain-archetype, despite his being so truly improbable. And then I remember that the original “mad scientists” were Dr. Jekyll and Dr. Frankenstein, whose science had no basis in reality, but whose characters tapped into massively powerful psychological and emotional archetypes. There is something about the dichotomy between “intellect” and “soul” that remains fascinating, even to us modern folk who plug in a toaster and use a computer every day.