Norman Borlaug, Giga-Lifesaver

In the 1950s and ’60s, another giga-lifesaver, Norman Borlaug, outsmarted evolution to foment the Green Revolution in the developing world.21 Plants in nature invest a lot of energy and nutrients in woody stalks that raise their leaves and blossoms above the shade of neighboring weeds and of each other. Like fans at a rock concert, everyone stands up, but no one gets a better view. That’s the way evolution works: it myopically selects for individual advantage, not the greater good of the spec...

 The Artilect Perspective of a Human Intelligence

It is not exaggerating to say that there is quite a close analogy between an artilect trying to communicate with a human being, and a human being trying to communicate with a rock. To make another analogy, consider your feelings towards a mosquito as it lands on the skin of your forearm. When you swat it, do you stop to consider that the creature you just killed is a miracle of nano-technological engineering, that scientists of the 20th century had absolutely no way of building. The mosquito...

 Condorcet's Final Days

Condorcet,proscribed by a sanguinary faction, formed the idea of addressing to his fellow-citizens a summary of his principles, and of his conduct in public affairs. He set down a few lines in execution of this project: but when he recollected, as he was obliged to do, thirty years of labour directed to the public service, and the multitude of fugitive pieces in which, since the revolution, he had uniformly attacked every institution inimical to liberty, he rejected the idea of a useless just...

 The Ideal of Collaboration

In a University we are especially bound to recognise not only the unity of science itself, but the communion of the workers in science. We are too apt to suppose that we are congregated here merely to be within reach of certain appliances of study, such as museums and laboratories, libraries and lecturers, so that each of us may study what he prefers. I suppose that when the bees crowd round the flowers it is for the sake of the honey that they do so, never thinking that it is the dust which ...

 Stephen and Lucy Hawking's Scientist's Oath

I swear to use my scientific knowledge for the good of Humanity. I promise never to harm any person in search of enlightenment. I shall be courageous and careful in my quest for greater knowledge about the mysteries that surround us. I shall not use scientific knowledge for my own personal gain or give it to those who seek to destroy the wonderful planet on which we live. If I break my oath, may the beauty and wonder of the Universe forever remain hidden from me.

 Allegra Goodman's Hippocratic Oath for Scientists

I promise never to allow financial gain, competitiveness or ambition cloud my judgment in the conduct of ethical research and scholarship. I will pursue knowledge and create knowledge for the greater good, but never to the detriment of colleagues, supervisors, research subjects or the international community of scholars of which I am now a member.