SCIENCE AND SECRECY
By PROFESSOR A. V. HILL, F.R.S.
THE use of atomic energy against the Japanese has naturally provoked wide comment on the ethical principles involved. Are the results of scientific research, ruthlessly applied, to be allowed to end man's civilised existence? Are human morals at their present level of development to be trusted with the tools and weapons which science can create? And remember—the atomic bomb is only one of various possible forms of scientific mischief ; biology and chemistry can make their effective contribution too to mutual destruction.
Critical decisions must be taken soon about these things ; wise and intelligent statesmanship is required as never before in history : if once we start on the wrong road there may be no going back. To be quite frank, if power politics is to be played in the future between two rival technical blocs, America and Britain on the one part, Russia and her satellites (with German technicians) on the other, then the inevitable explosion will occur. If frankness and wisdom can prevail over the traditional methods of an out-worn diplomacy, then there is hope that international regulation and control will be possible. But that requires frankness on all sides ; if any one of the parties insists on keeping its scientists and its scientific developments behind closed doors, the opportunity of co-operation will be gone and the drift to destruction will have started.
Scientific people have long been deeply concerned about these matters, and earlier this year I ventured to speak rather strongly about them in an address to the Royal Empire Society,—certain passages of which I may perhaps quote here.
The truth is, I said then, that science and engineering have made the world very small in time and space. In the past, a spark of trouble here or there could be isolated ; today it may flare up into a world bonfire. And the bonfire of the future will be no struggle between armed forces, but a deliberate attempt, by scientific methods and technical weapons, to destroy cities, to massacre populations and to make whole countries uninhabitable. If traditional methods of diplomacy and politics are in future to dominate international rela- tions,—if nations nominally at peace with one another are tti prepare secretly to wipe each other out, without warning—then what hope can there be that some fool or criminal will not set the process going? The decent sense of ordinary men might prevent such happenings if the facts were well enough appreciated ; but nations can be driven crazy by hatred and propaganda and by fear of the unknown. The only hope indeed of averting the disaster which science, misapplied, could inflict on humanity is an international brotherhood of scientific men, with a common ethical standard by which potential crimes of this character would be exposed and prevented.
For, if political isolationism and aggressive nationalism are to exploit science and its applications, not for the benefit of mankind but in order to prepare in secret for mutual destruction, they are very likely to succeed ; and mankind, like the pterodactyl too suc- cessful in its flying, may become extinct. Many civilisations of the past have disappeared ; but those were in the days when the speed of a man and the power of a horse determined the scale of time and space in the operation of political, social and economic forces. Like a local infection in the body, the trouble was usually sealed off. Today with speeds of travel nearly as fast as sound ; with communication as fast as light ; with sources of power potentially available beyond even the dreams of yesterday ; with possibilities of injury by physical, chemical and biological methods frightful beyond any hitherto imagined ; with an almost complete collapse of previous ethical stan- dards, and the demonstration of how scores of millions of highly educated and intelligent people can be led into hate and hysteria by the methods of the scientific advertiser and propagandist—today it will not be a mild local infection but an acute general septicaemia.
My friends, I think, will acquit me of being given unduly to hysteria and alarm ; but I am convinced, and others who know much better are convinced no less, that if these terrible fears for the future are not to be realised some drastic decisions are necessary very soon. Political isolationism, aggressive nationalism and secrecy in preparing scientific methdds for mutual destruction, must stop. Scientific men themselves throughout the world must be allowed to work together in mutual confidence and sincerity. Ethical standards in their work must be restored, so that the misuse of scientific know- ledge and discovery (the common property of mankind), either for selfish exploitation or for general destruction, will be regarded—like cowardice in a soldier or dishonesty in a banker—as the unforgive- able sin. If these conditions can be realised there is hope for 3 brighter and happier future for the world ; if not, mankind driven by hatred, fear, hysteria and political' catchwords, will plunge into irretrievable ruin.
The way not to handle these matters was shown by the late Prime Minister when he prevented eight scientific men, who might be sup- posed to know something about atomic energy, from attending the celebrations of the Soviet Academy of Science in Moscow ; and then informed Parliament that his decision was taken "not on any ques- tion of security "! That way failure is certain. Equally fruitless would be any attempt at joint control so long as the scientists and technicians in any of the countries involved are not free men—free to travel, to publish, to discuss. And finally, decisions can be based on knowledge only if scientific men are equal partners in arriving at them. Too long we scientists have been treated by people like Beaverbrook as " backroom boys "; only as " members of the Board " can we exert an effective influence on policy. In international affairs that influence is bound to be good, for science is the most inter- national of all interests. This may (in the words of a V.I.P.) " trans- gress the fundamental doctrine that technical experts should not sit at the level of executive authority," but if science and scientific men are not to be given their proper place in framing policy, then I for one shall urge my colleagues to keep aloof and let things go to the devil without us.
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