Science is a pandora box – but we have to open it anyway

Whether it’s Pandora’s box, Eve apple or cat curiosity, there is no shortage of predigents on the dangers of knowledge-but are there really so toxic ideas that they should be deleted?

Well, it depends on who you ask. Faced with the heretical concept of Galileo Galilei of the earth not being the center of the universe, the Catholic Church has descended harshly while the idea threatened its teachings. Although it delayed heliocentrism, the Church apologized … in 1992.

Deletion can therefore only retain an idea for so long, especially if it turns out to be true. And yet, as we report (see “The bitter argument bursts on the controversial theory of consciousness”), some researchers argue that we should reject a proposed theory consciousness because of his implications for thorny questions such as the rights of the fetus or artificial intelligenceEven as evidence points to its favor.

It is far from the cries of heresy of the inquisitors, but there is something uncomfortable to reject a scientific idea based on its potential consequences. It is still far from being clear if this idea, known as Integrated information theoryis even the right approach to consciousness – but it would be bad to abandon it prematurely.

Perhaps researchers should simply continue the purity of knowledge, without concern for the benefits? It would also be a mistake.

Take the example of physicists whose explorations have led to the design of the atomic bomb. Albert Einstein, working with others, sent a letter to the American president Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1939 to warn him that the scientists of Nazi Germany were probably working to build one, stimulating on the Manhattan project.

Ironically, Einstein regretted having sent his letter, feeling that it led to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But it is difficult to claim that it should not have issued his warning. In the end, science is the process of opening an endless series of Pandora boxes that house good or potential evil. Scientists can do their best to shepherd what they have released, but leaving the closed boxes would be a lower choice.