SCIENCE AND HUMAN RIGHTS

BUTTERFLIES IN SPACE
by Paul Cantor

One of the personal items that perished with Israeli astronaut Colonel Ilan Ramon when he died in the Columbia space shuttle disaster on February 1, 2003 was a drawing called Mountains of the Moon made by Petr Ginz in Terezín. Petr Ginz was a 14-year-old Jewish boy killed in Auschwitz. Terezín or Theresienstadt is a town in the Czech Republic where Jews from Bohemia and Moravia were held before the Nazis shipped them off to death camps. Altogether 15,000 children passed through Terezín. Only 150 survived. Pavel Friedmann, a poet, also passed through Terezín.  While there he wrote a poem about a yellow butterfly which was the last butterfly he saw before he too was shipped off to die in the ovens at Auschwitz:

Such, such a yellow
Is carried lightly 'way up high.
It went away I'm sure because it wished
to kiss the world goodbye.

Ilan Ramon did not want to kiss the world goodbye.  He wanted to send it a message. "There is no better place to emphasize the unity of people in the world than flying in space," he said before liftoff. “We are all the same people, we are all human beings, and I believe that most of us, almost all of us, are good people.” Yes, Terezín and Auschwitz along with Hiroshima and Nagasaki (the two cities destroyed by atom bombs in World War II), the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, and escalating violence in India, Myanmar, Africa and elsewhere are indications of how low we can fall as a result of the darker aspects of our nature. But space flight is an indication of how high our ability to reason and work together can take us. In the 21st century we may explore the heavens or, as Lord Louis Mountbatten put it, "It could all be over in a matter of days. And when it is all over what will the world be like? Our fine great buildings, our homes will exist no more. The thousands of years it took to develop our civilization will have been in vain. Our works of art will be lost. Radio, television, newspapers will disappear. There will be no means of transport. There will be no hospitals. No help can be expected for the few mutilated survivors in any town to be sent from a neighboring town - there will be no neighboring towns left, no neighbors, there will be no help, there will be no hope." Indeed today we are, in Lord Mountbatten’s words, "on the brink of a final abyss" and ought to be applying the same reasoning process that has given us an ongoing revolution in the sciences to the question of how to design a just, peaceful and sustainable world order.  In short, the ability to reason has given us computers and iPhones, roads and bridges, longer lifetimes and footprints on the moon. Yet despite the foundation of the United Nations and its drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a document that Eleanor Roosevelt referred to as a “common standard of achievement for all peoples of all nations,” it has not enabled us to establish a just and peaceful world order in which everyone’s human rights are realized.

Why not?

That is something the Kemper Human Rights Education Foundation hopes educators around the world will motivate students to think about.

SCIENCE CAN’T SUPPLY US WITH AN ETHIC

In a  scientific world we need “a somewhat different moral code from the one inherited from the past…The most important new facts are that the world is more unified that it used to be…and that communities at war with each other have more power of inflicting mutual disaster than at any former time…before very long psychology, and especially mass psychology, will be recognized as the most important of all sciences from the standpoint of human welfare…In view of the terrifying power that science is conferring on governments, it is necessary that those who control government should have enlightened and intelligent ideals…It is not science…which will determine how science is used. Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic.  It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved.  But among ends that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scientific considerations…Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else.”  Bertrand Russell, The Science to Save Us from Science, New York Times Magazine, March 19, 1950

NEVER FORGET THIS

“Concern for man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavors, concern for the great unsolved problems of the organization of labor and the distribution of goods – in order that the creations of our mind shall be a blessing and not a curse to mankind.  Never forget this in the midst of your diagrams and equations.”  Albert Einstein, Californian Instituted of Technology, 1932.

NECESSARY COLLABORATION

“Indeed the rapid progress of science and technology…which entails unique promises for the promotion of human welfare and at the same time imminent menaces to universal security, presents our whole civilization with a veritable challenge.  Certainly, every increase in knowledge and potentialities has always implied a greater responsibility, but at the present moment, when the fate of all peoples is inseparably connected, a collaboration in mutual confidence, based on appreciation of every aspect of the common human position is more necessary than ever before in the history of mankind.”  Neils Bohr, Essays 1958-1962 on Atomic Physics and Human Knowledge, Richard Clay and Company Ltd., Great Britain, 1963, p. 15-16.   

APPREHENSION

“Men have brought their powers of subduing the forces of nature to such a pitch that by using them they could now very easily exterminate one another to the last man.  They know this—hence arises a great part of their current unrest, their dejection, their mood of apprehension.”  Sigmund Freud, Civilization and Its Discontents.

MORE TO WORRY ABOUT

“As science and technology make ever more rapid advances we have more to worry about:  Cyberspace threats to personal privacy…human cloning…organ harvesting…[artificial intelligence]…That scientists are sometimes not rights literate should be no surprise because the fragmentation of knowledge in our modern society is such that few scientists, engineers, technicians, or health professionals know about the existence and content of international human rights declarations and covenants…What is generally missing in human rights education…is attention to the many intersection points between human rights and science.” Richard Piere Claude, Science in the Service of Human Rights, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002.

SCIENTIFIC RESPONSIBILITY AND JUSTICE

“The American Association for the Advancement of Science Center for Scientific Responsibility and Justice empowers scientists and engineers to pursue justice by advancing trustworthy science – science that is conducted and communicated responsibly, upholding the values of scientific freedom and human rights, including the right of everyone to enjoy the benefits of scientific progress. Previously known as the Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law program, the Center provides support for scientists to help them apply the values of trustworthy science in their daily work; works to increase trust in science with communities that have not benefitted from scientific progress; and develops and sustains infrastructures and institutions that promote, protect, and defend scientific freedom and responsibility. To realize a world where we can achieve scientific excellence responsibly, ethically and inclusively to broaden our impact on society and uphold the rights and dignity of everyone, the Center aims to build an ecosystem where trustworthy science can thrive.” https://www.aaas.org/programs/scientific-responsibility-justice

PROTECT THE RIGHT TO SCIENCE

We are catapulting towards an unrecognizable world — 3°C hotter than the pre-industrial one and filled with widespread pollution by the end of the century. This crisis will be an insurmountable threat to humanity’s future, unless we take immediate and colossal steps to address it. As the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, I believe that science and human rights must direct humanity’s actions… Global action and inaction, fueled by failures of policymakers and businesses, and worsened by greed, ideology, and indifference, are propelling us ever deeper into environmental catastrophe. Addressing the crisis is possible only through open debate, critical thinking, and evidence-based analysis. Yet we still see heavy corporate influence on regulatory processes, direct attacks on scientific studies, smear campaigns against scientists, misleading literature and exploitation of scientific illiteracy. Too many governments, policymakers and big-industry leaders are willfully shutting their eyes to science and deploying biased ‘experts’ to sow doubt and undermine scientific facts. For example, environmental scientist Geoffrey Supran and historian Naomi Oreskes at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, have shown how the fossil-fuel industry funded counter research and climate-change-denial campaigns after internal scientists sounded the alarm on the risks of fossil-fuel emissions.  Other big industries have also suffocated evidence, on the harms of everything from pesticide use to lead additives, at the expense of people’s right to health…Human-rights guardrails must be integrated into policymaking, investment decisions and business models. The UN’s Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights stipulates that industry and governments must make every effort possible to promote accurate scientific information. This means no more disinformation, no more disparagement and no more deliberately misinforming the public to erode understanding and respect for science.  Volker Türk, “Protect the ‘right to science’ for people and the planet,” Nature, 11/1/2023

ARTICLE 27

“Everyone has the right…to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.”  Article 27 of The Universal Declaration of Human Rights.