Power and responsibility - Essay Example

Einsteins theories have made spaceflight, nuclear energy, and the discovery of universes beyond our own possible, but the question still haunts us; can an atomic bomb fall into the hands of a global tyrant?. Todays technology has made it possible to peer into a mans life, follow his every move, create his most intimate moods, and build an offspring to his exacting specifications. Science can hold the keys to progress or build the doomsday machine. Still, the scientists have no obligation to assure that the science they create will be used responsibly.

It is the citizens of the global community that are given the task to make an ethically sound decision. Sciences simple goals are to discover and create, while it is society that needs to exert the cultural pressures needed to control our runaway technology. The horror stories that relate to the egregious misuse of technology fill our headlines on a daily basis. The war on terror has been used as a justification for using cutting edge technology to spy on American citizens, as well as hunt down and interrogate the nations alleged enemies.

While the human intuition recoils in fear and disgust at the insideous use of science to interrogate prisoners, the argument in favor of it is neither new or without merit. Michael Koubi, a former chief interrogator for Israels General Security Services, has for decades been, "experimenting with captive human beings, cajoling, tricking, hurting, threatening, and spying on them, steadily upping the pressure, looking for cracks at the seams" (Bowden). Sixty-five years ago pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly experimented with altering the moods of primates by implanting electrodes in their brain (Bowden).

It has been widely reported that these technologies are currently being used to interrogate terrorists by the US government and its agents. Government secrets are often slow to surface, and they may have