Sunday, August 6, 2017

Hiroshima, again

Hiroshima was destroyed on August 5th, 7:16 PM, our time--just under an hour before our sunset.


 

広島



Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese army base. ... It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. . . . What has been done is the greatest achievement of organized science in history.



It happened on this date, this "greatest achievement."




New technology used to "solve" an old problem. We cannot help ourselves.

Wes Jackson, founder of the Land Institute, suggested "we ought to stay out of the nuclei." Until we have a clue what we want, sounds like good advice.

You cannot separate tools from the critters who use them. Teaching science as some compartmentalized thought process without cultural context is a dangerous game.

What is our responsibility as teachers of science?
As citizens of the United States?
As human beings?

***
We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried, most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad-Gita. Vishnu is trying to persuade the Prince that he should do his duty and to impress him takes on his multi-armed form and says, "Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." I suppose we all thought that one way or another.
-J. Robert Oppenheimer



And now I teach science to (very) young adults. I have a responsibility to them, to the state, to myself.

Harry S. Truman called the bombing of Hiroshima "the greatest achievement of organized science." If that does not give you pause, you should not be teaching science.

You should not be teaching anything at all.




This is posted every year, as a reminder to me.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

That is why I teach a lesson on the "Ethics of Science". We are at a point where we should not ask "Can we do it", but 'Should we do it". I teach it in every course, class, science camp and tutoring lesson.

doyle said...

Dear Matt,

A great idea--I'm going to wander upstairs and borrow your ideas (again).

~Michael

Mary Ann Reilly said...

With personal loss, the staggering loss of ordinary people defies any language I know. I have known this history and yet, this year with the knowledge of how Rob's death informs my life I cannot begin to imagine what these people felt, knew, wondered. The sorrow was surely staggering.