READING (1D)

THE SCIENTISTS’ RESPONSIBILITY

I think it may be reasonably maintained that neither the United States nor any other nation can, by itself, solve the important problems that plague the world now. The problem that count today – the steady population increase, the diminishing of our resources, the multiplication of our waste, the damage to the environment, the decay of the cities, the declining quality of live – are all interdependent and are all global in nature.

No nation, be it wealthy, large or populous, can correct these problems without reference to the rest of the world. Though the United States, for instance, brought its population to a firm plateau, cleaned its soil, purified its water, filtered its air, swept up its waste, and cycled its resources, all would avail it nothing as long as the rest of the world did none of these things.

These problems, left unsolved, will weigh us down under a steady acceleration of increasing misery with each passing years; yet to solve them requires us to think above the level of nationalism. No amount of local pride anywhere in the world; no amount of patriotic ardor on a less-than-all-mankind scale; no amount of flag waving; no prejudice in favour of some specific regional culture and tradition; no conviction of personal or ethnic superiority can prevail against the cold equations. The nations of the world must co-operate to seek the possibility of mutual life, or remain separately hostile to face the certainty of mutual death.

Nor can the co-operation be peevish agreement of haughty equals: each quick to resent slurs, eager to snuff out injustice to itself, and ready to profit at the expenses of others. So little time is left and so high have become the stakes, that there no longer remains any profitable way of haggling over details, manoeuvring for position, or threatening at every moment to pick up our local marbles and go home.

The international co-operation must take the form of a world government sufficient effective to make and enforce the necessary decision, and against which the individual nations would have neither the right nor the power to take up arms.

Tyranny? Yes, of course. Just about the tyranny of Washington over Albany, Albany over New York City, and New York City over me. Though we are each of us personally harried by the financial demands and plagued by the endless order of the officialdom of three different levels of government, we accept it all, more or less stoically, under the firm conviction that live would be worse otherwise. To accept a fourth level would be a cheap price to pay for keeping our planet viable.

But who on Earth best realizes the serious nature of the problems that beset us? As a class, the scientists, I should think. They can weigh, most accurately and most judiciously, the drain on the world’s resources, the effect of global pollution, the dangers of fragmenting ecology.

And who on Earth might most realistically bear a considerable share of responsibility for the problems that beset us? As a class, the scientists, I should think. Since they gladly accept the credit for lowering the death rate and for industrializing the world, they might with some grace accept a good share of responsibility for the less than desirable side effect that have accompanied those victories.

And who on Earth might be expected to lead the way in finding solutions to the problems that beset us? As a class, the scientists, I should think. On whom else can we depend for the elaboration of humane systems for limiting population, effective ways of preventing or reversing pollution, elegant methods of cycling resources? All this will clearly depend on steadily increasing scientific knowledge and on steadily increasing the wisdom with which this knowledge is applied.

And who on Earth is most likely to rise above the limitations of national and ethnic prejudice and speak in the name of mankind as a whole? As a class, the scientists, I should think. The nations of the world are divided in cultures: in language, in religion, in taste, in philosophy, in heritage – but wherever science exists at all, it is the same science; and scientists from anywhere and everywhere speak the same language, professionally, and accept the same mode of thought.

It is not then as a class, to the scientists that we must turn to find leaders in the fight for world government?

From “Today and tomorrow, and…” by Isaac Asimov

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