13. Science Gone Wrong

Introduction

For many people, the phrase Science Gone Wrong immediately calls to mind the films in which a scientist or corporate executive mishandles advanced technology and unleashes a catastrophe. These stories - from the campy sci-fi movies of the fifties and sixties to some of the most acclaimed thrillers ever made - revolve around one core theme: carelessness with the applications of science.

But before settling in with popcorn, it’s worth remembering that these fictional disasters often draw their power from real human behavior and real-world tragedies. The on-screen chaos is entertaining precisely because it echoes situations where individuals or institutions ignored warnings, cut corners, or put ambition above responsibility.

This chapter is not simply a catalogue of mad scientists, reckless CEOs, or inept government officials causing humanitarian or environmental harm through poor handling of technology. The problem is deeper. Science can “go wrong” in more than one way - not only through technological misuse, but also through failures of integrity, accountability, and evidence.

In both cases, there is a common theme: egotistic individuals causing tremendous harm by considering only their own ambitions. We begin by examining how this lack of concern for safety has repeatedly led to preventable disasters.

Catastrophes That Should Not Happen

Science Gone Wrong is a movie genre built around overly ambitions scientists or executives who use science or technology to pursue personal or corporate gain. Blinded by ego and lacking empathy for others, they ignore warnings about the dangers of their creation. Their hubris sets the stage for disaster, and when they lose control, chaos erupts in a whirlwind of destruction, moral reckoning, and high-stakes drama.

Movies like Jurassic Park, Ex Machina, Oppenheimer, and The Andromeda Strain are entertaining, yet we should remind ourselves that these stories reflect reality. Avoidable catastrophes happen daily because those in charge misuse science or technology. These actions can cause deaths by the dozens, hundreds, thousands, or even millions - yet the perpetrators are rarely held accountable.

Senior corporate executives are ten to twenty times more likely than average to exhibit clinically significant psychopathic traits. Hence, it is not surprising that many of these individuals place their ambitions above concerns for public safety. Sometimes - as in the Boeing 737 MAX crashes - disasters occur because executives ignored or hid safety concerns to maximize profits. Other times, those responsible are fully aware of the ongoing harm they are causing but simply do not care. They act this way because they lack morals and know that even if caught, they will likely face no real consequences.

How Catastrophes Occur

Science Gone Wrong / Corporate Negligence

Year	Diaster	Cause	Fatalities	Accountability?
1984	Bhopal Gas Tragedy, India	Union Carbide executives did not repair numerous broken safety features	3,800 immediate deaths, tens of thousands injured or dying	CEO Warren Anderson evaded justice by fleeing the country. Company paid out less than a hundred thousand dollars per death.
1986	Challenger Shuttle, USA	NASA & Contractor ignored warning about O-ring failure	7 astronauts	No crimal charges; just policy changes
2010	Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, USA	BP executives ignored safety warnings	11 Workers; environmental disaster affecting most of Gulf of Mexico	Paid $20B+ in fines; no CEO criminally charged
2013	Rana Plaza Collapse, Bangladesh	Garment factory owners & managers ignored structural warning	1134	Some executives served short sentences
2018 2019	Boeing 737 MAX Crashes	Boeing executives ignored safty concerns and hid problems with aircraft	346	CEO resigned; no prosecution of top executives
2020 -2022	COVID-19 World-wide Pandemic	Many government leaders ignored scientific advice and prioritized economics over public health	Hard to estimate, hundreds of thousands to millions of unnecessary deaths	No consequences

For Good or Evil

Science and technology is what gives us all of the conveniences of modern life, or to put this another way without S & T homo Sapiens would still be competing alongside the other apes for their daily survival. However science and technology can be use not just to do good, but it can also be used to intentionally or unintentionally do harm. The same chainsaw useful for cutting branches and trunk of a fallen tree can seriously injure or kill the person holding the chainsaw or someone near them if they are careful in handling the chainsaw. Likewise we currently enjoy the numerous modern conveniences, thanks to the many centuries of accumulated ever improving technology however much of this including our lives could be wipe away in instance if some authoritarian madman decides to launch their countries nuclear arsenal. Hence, while it is possible that good engineers and scientists will continue to enhance our standards of living with further discoveries and inventions, there is also the possibility that unethical or immoral people will cause incredible harm.

Science Gone Wrong can be thought of as the specific cases where a tragedy occurred because a scientist or more likely executives of corporation took unnecessary risk in hopes of their own gain or Science Gone Wrong can be seen as a culture or process that halts the overall advancement of science.

Science and technology are often mentioned together, and while both are crucial to human progress, it is important to understand their differences. Based on evidence and the premise that we exist in a rational universe, science is the pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the natural world through observation, reasoning, mathematics, and experimental testing. Whereas technology is the practical application of knowledge — scientific, mathematical, or experiential — to solve problems, achieve goals, or create tools, systems, and processes that extend human capabilities.

Another important, yet often overlooked, distinction between science and technology is the mechanism for determining if an idea is correct. With technology, a potential new invention, process, or set of software coding typically provides immediate clear feedback as to whether its works or fails. Such is not the case with science since it is up to the scientists to make the determination of whether their ideas work or not, and scientists – being human – can be extremely resistant towards acknowledging that their cherished idea is a failure. Scientists are suppose to be objective in carefully weigh the evidence, however the reality is that in order to advance their careers scientists need to play politics in going along with current mainstream beliefs whereas they are likely to kill their career if they point out how the evidence does not support those beliefs. In summary, in technology the correcting process is extremely abrupt and immediate, while in science the many ways that scientist can avoid admitting mistakes means that there is hardly any correctional process at all thus allowing incorrect beliefs to continue on for decades or even centuries.

Modern Science: The New Religion

It used to be that science was easily distinguished from religion. Unlike religion, followers of science would ask questions about nature - especially when something didn’t seem to make sense. They would read the work of other scientists, make calculations, and run experiments in the hope of discovering the truth. Unfortunately, this pursuit of evidence and reason often led to unpleasant truths. Sometimes it revealed that a cherished hypothesis was wrong. Even worse were discoveries that made humanity feel small and insignificant in the vastness of the universe. And constantly, people had to readjust their beliefs to keep up with new revolutionary discoveries. Thankfully, in these modern times, science no longer has such problems.

Today, science has become much more like a religion. But unlike other religions - and at least for now - science, along with economics, is one of the few belief systems officially allowed to be taught in public schools. In this new religion, it is no longer necessary to present evidence in support of one’s beliefs. Instead, the leading science authorities merely declare that their favored beliefs are “the consensus of scientists,” and with that tidy little circular argument - it’s true because we claim it’s true - all is settled. Who can argue with that?

Modern science only requires students to accept whatever beliefs are being taught. There is no need to wonder whether there is evidence for those beliefs, whether that evidence is strong, or whether the argument makes sense. In fact, there is little motivation or opportunity for students to develop reasoning skills at all. Thinking is no longer necessary - memorization will suffice. All that is required is for students to remember what the leading scientists want them to know in order to pass exams.

Perhaps the best thing about modern science is that, once a follower has learned the mainstream beliefs, there will probably never be any need to learn about any new discoveries. Consider the whirlwind of scientific progress of a century ago: Einstein’s theories of relativity, Curie pioneering radioactivity, and Bohr’s successful explanation of the hydrogen atom. Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and Born all joined forces to lay the foundations of quantum mechanics. De Broglie showed that matter behaves like waves, while Compton proved that light behaves like particles. How did the public ever keep up with all those discoveries?

Now consider how much technology has advanced over the past century and the impact it could have on advancing science; imagine how exhausting it would be if, every month, we - the public - had to keep up with every new revolutionary breakthrough that we can hardly comprehend. Thankfully, we’re spared from such distractions; today’s peer-review system is remarkably efficient at rejecting any and all novel ideas that might arise from imaginative great thinkers. Who among us can even remember the last time a leading scientist - or any scientist - made a discovery worthy of history?

For those who wish to join the scientific priesthood, humility is required. Before candidates can be ordained as scientists, they must serve those who already wear the robes of authority. A couple of years of penance will earn a master’s degree; several more years of intense groveling may earn the coveted doctorate. Those who endure this debasement can console themselves with the belief that one day it will be their turn to wield powers - their reward for years of submission.

Nowadays, modern science is like any other religion: if someone is not fully supportive of every mainstream belief, it’s best that they either keep silent or leave. Surely they will be ostracized if they speak of ideas that question the dogma. Without dissenting voices, scientific meetings are so much smoother. We are so grateful that our high priests of science - these super-intelligent authoritarians - are here to tell us what to think. Blessed are the obedient, for they shall inherit tenure.

Yet to reach the goal of becoming a career scientist one must publish or perish, for publishing is the gateway to science heaven. To reach this heaven, one must receive grant funding, conduct research, and publish results - but not necessarily in that order. To win a grant, a candidate must convince sponsors that they can best produce the “findings” that support the sponsor’s agenda. The most blessed are those who can predict what their patrons wish to hear; God help the scientist whose conclusions fail to please the sponsor - for they shall never receive funding again.

And pleasing the sponsors is not enough. The conclusions must also please the leading scientific authorities - the gatekeepers of publishing heaven. How can we not be grateful to these guardians of science who give freely of their time to censor any article that might challenge the beliefs upon which their own careers are built? These infallible gods of science care little whether an article is sound, fraudulent, or nonsensical rubbish. What matters to them is that it upholds the sacred order. There will be no tolerance for ideas that disturb the divine perfection of the established faith.

These days, the vast majority of published “research” is irreproducible rubbish. Of course it’s rubbish - the results were listed in the grant application long before the experiment began. It doesn’t really matter whether the researcher falsifies data or manipulates statistics to make a failed experiment look successful; the work will be published if it tells the story the sponsors and authorities want told. Even after the article is published, this favoritism toward what is popular continues. Non-replicable papers are cited far more often than replicable ones - on average sixteen times more - and if a non-replicable paper makes it into a top journal, the citation rate can soar to 300. Isn’t it wonderful that scientists no longer have their papers rejected or their egos bruised because actual experimental results made it clear that their hypotheses are wrong?

It used to mean something when an article was “peer reviewed,” but those days are gone. Without accountability to evidence, truth becomes whatever we wish it to be. For those who have risen to the top of this sanctified corruption masquerading as science, the system is working exactly as intended. And in their temples of knowledge, beneath the glowing halos of grant money, they kneel before the altar of consensus and call it truth.

The Problems With Modern Science

1. Phony Research and the Reproducibility Crisis – Nearly all funding is agenda-driven, designed to produce answers that sponsors want to hear. Even before the “research” begins, grants are awarded to those who convince sponsors that their work will support the desired conclusions. The majority of peer-reviewed papers cannot be duplicated. To be clear, this is the equivalent of saying that most peer-reviewed papers are worthless rubbish.
2. Entrenched Gatekeeping – While most people assume that peer review is a means of evaluating the scientific soundness of a paper, most reviewers have no interest in this. The reason entrenched scientists volunteer their time is because they want to ensure that no paper is published that contradicts the beliefs on which they have built their careers.
3. Groupthink – Modern science culture has too much in common with faith-based belief systems, where anyone who questions mainstream ideas is usually marginalized, attacked, and ostracized.
4. Intolerance Toward Unconventional Ideas – Instead of examining whatever evidence there is in support of new idea, new ideas are censored and rejected right from the start because they are not mainstream – a Catch 22 argument that blocks any pathway for science to advance.
5. Historical Revisionism and the Claim of Infallibility – The scientific community downplays or ignores its numerous past errors, creating the misleading impression that scientific authorities are rarely wrong. By implying infallibility, they discourage the questioning of their scientific beliefs.
6. Advancing Careers Instead of Advancing Science – Siding with evidence rather than with established dogmatic beliefs can be suicidal for a scientist’s career. Successful leading scientists behave politically: they rarely admit to error, defend their turf, censor opposing ideas, and demand loyalty rather than engaging in open debate.
7. Popular Flawed Beliefs Are Never Rejected – Misleading “scientists” show no respect for evidence. When they cannot find clear evidence supporting their belief, they simply claim that it is “the consensus of experts” that their belief is true, as if this is a valid substitution for evidence.
8. Abstract Modeling Detached from Reality – Many beliefs of modern science do not even qualify as being wrong. To be a scientific belief, a claim must be testable against real-world evidence; otherwise, it is nothing more than unfalsifiable speculation.
9. Decline of Curiosity – Genuine curiosity leads to scientific discoveries, yet graduate training often cultivates conformity and punishes independent thinking. This pushes potential scientists to consider other careers - driving away the very thinkers most capable of advancing science.
10. Failure to Teach Reasoning Skills – Students no longer develop reasoning abilities because misleading scientists present conclusions without evidence-based arguments. When beliefs are claimed to be true because they are the consensus of experts, students must either accept this circular reasoning as a matter of faith or reject science as being just another belief system.

*************************************

How did the science community become so corrupted and dysfunctional? How is it possible that we can have so much amazing technology available to gather data and test ideas, and yet there are so few actual scientific discoveries being made?

The answer lies in the fact that the science community is not a democracy but a highly structured hierarchy. Like the army or the Catholic Church - except much worse - the people who fill its ranks are not paid to think but to carry out orders. There is no feedback mechanism for correcting the numerous serious flaws of this organization; anyone who questions its methods or challenges its irrational beliefs is quickly ostracized. The authoritarians of the science community could not care less about the merits of opposing scientific ideas; they will viciously weed out any and all dissent. This is not a place where highly intelligent and imaginative people can flourish. It is an organizational structure completely incompatible with its stated goal of advancing science. Just as the medieval Church once silenced heretics, today’s scientific orthodoxy silences anyone who questions its modern dogmas.

This is unacceptable. Science must be at the core of a technologically advanced society. But if, instead of science, we have a set of false beliefs detached from reality, then not just science but society itself rots from within. While the slowing of science and technology is bad enough, it is far worse that people are losing their ability to reason - along with their faith that we live in a rational world. Our society will crumble if we do not take action to reform science. If civilization is to survive, science must be rescued from the false scientists who claim to speak for it.

How Science Went Wrong

Starting about a century ago science took a sharp turn for the worse as a result of an extremely unfortunate side effect to the discovery of quantum physics.

Before quantum physics, science generally assumed that reality was knowable and measurable. Hypotheses were judged primarily by how well they matched experimental results. However an aspect of quantum physics – Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle (formulated in 1927) - states that one cannot simultaneously know both the exact position and momentum of a particle. Set off a chain of philosophical thinking within the science community.

The Copenhagen interpretation was that certain fundamental truths might be unknowable in principle, not just in practice and this marked the beginning of an era in which scientists grew increasingly comfortable with hypotheses that could not be experimentally verified. Once the guardrails of requiring observable, testable, and reproducible evidence were broken, science itself has become broken.

In a way opposite to Galileo’s insistence that scientific beliefs should be experimentally tested - a concept that soon lead to the scientific revolution - Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle has allowed authoritarians to revert back to the practice of promoting their beliefs without feeling obligated to show whatever evidence, if any, that they have in support of their beliefs.

The ‘Consensus of Scientists’ Is the Death of Science

Without evidence, science simply isn’t science. Every legitimate scientific belief must be supported by strong, independent, and reproducible evidence. Ideally, there should be multiple, converging lines of evidence that all point to the same conclusion. At least one of these lines of reasoning should always be stated when a science educator introduces a new concept. Otherwise, how are students supposed to understand that scientific beliefs are based on evidence rather than authority?

This approach does more than teach facts - it teaches reasoning. When students learn that “because of evidence A and evidence B, we can logically conclude C,” they begin to see science as a rational process, not as a list of memorized doctrines. They learn how to think, not what to think.

Reforming Science

How can the science community be reformed? The short answer is that it can’t be reformed.

Reforming Science Education

A Better World

The constant reporting of technological failures - along with technology’s ability to spread hateful attitudes - can give people the impression that they might be better off without so much science and technology. Indeed, Amish communities put these feelings into action by deliberately avoiding most technologies developed after the nineteenth century. It may sound naïve, but an argument could be made that there are real benefits to this restraint.

Nevertheless, rejecting science and technology is neither realistic nor wise, for this perspective ignores how profoundly they continue to enriched our lives. Without science and technology, Homo sapiens would still be struggling for basic survival alongside other animals.

Modern problems rarely arise because of science and technology themselves; they arise primarily from those who misuse them. Technology that was useful for hunting game - spears, bows and arrows, rifles - was quickly found to be just as useful for killing other human beings. If unregulated, the factories that produce the many goods we rely on will be irresponsible in polluting the environment with the byproducts of their production. While governments should regulate these companies, they themselves often pollute the land, wage war, or use science and technology to commit other crimes against humanity.

We, as a so-called civilization, are not nearly as civilized as we like to believe. Human empathy has improved since Homo sapiens first evolved, but the progress has been slow and uneven; after all, it is difficult for people to develop empathy when peaceful groups are often wiped out by warlike ones. Yet this measly improvement in human relations is completely inadequate for keeping up with the fast pace of technological developments. In modern times, this lack of moral restraint or empathy has become far more dangerous, since technology enables just a few uncaring individuals - or even a single CEO with psychopathic tendencies - to cause catastrophic harm. Beyond the near-daily news of disasters caused by irresponsible people cutting corners, there is the ever-present possibility that a radar glitch, an overly aggressive dictator, or some other failure will trigger the launch of nuclear warheads - an event so plausible that it is no longer a question of whether it will occur, but when.

External Links / References