When Good Science Goes Bad

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A videotape shows a BMW driving quite erratically. It drives along swerving in and out of traffic. The car drives on the shoulder of the road and even off to the side of the road at times. On the tape a voice can be heard. It is the police officer communicating back and forth with the person on the other end of his radio. What he says is shown as subtitles on the bottom of the screen. He reads off the speeds his radar gun shows. This lets you know how recklessly the driver of the BMW is driving. As the tape continues to play the BMW seems to be driving worse and worse, until the driver loses control and ends up getting into some sort of horrific accident all caught on the camera that is sitting on the dash of the police officers cruiser. Everyone has seen these television shows; the ones that are titled Worlds Scariest Police Chases, When Good Cops Turn Bad, and even Americas Dumbest Criminals. These shows on TV are relatively cheap to create. The companies just pay a person to do the narrating for the stories and they use actual footage from police car cameras or security cameras. The best part about these shows is they draw in the big ratings. Viewers love these shows and that brings in big advertising money for the companies. Well what if these shows were looked at in a different context? What if they were looked at because they were real and not as a TV show? Then they were looked at in other areas, say science. What would happen if a TV show called When Good Science (or Scientists) Goes (Go) Bad? Would people become more aware of what is going on and try to prevent it or would they be happier with not knowing what is going on? It seems scientists sometimes are more concentrated on their own curiosity, and that they may work on things solely for their own pursuit of knowledge. Sometimes the intention of the scientist may be to create something that will help better the world, but in the end the opposite happens.

The questions of science are not new. Since the beginning of time, man has explored science. They ask questions and seek answers. The question of is science doing the right thing or not is also not a new question.

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