THE DARK SIDE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY: MILITARY TECHNOLOGY I
??????????? In the humanities class (Humanities 1:? On Being Human) where I taught a section on Humans as Scientists, I always began on the first day by pointing out that Science (and its coworker Technology) made everyone’s life better.?
??????????? Without Science, half of you wouldn’t be here.
??????????? Without Science, you’re lookin’ pretty old – your college-aged life is half over.? ??
??????????? Without Science, you would have had quite a few children by now, and you would have lost half of them.?
??????????? Without science, many of you would be on your second or third spouse.? It’s true that divorce was rare, but multiple marriages were not – it’s just that your spouse died on you.?
??????????? We talk about the great engineering achievements, as determined by the National Academy of Engineering, and the now less appreciated Apollo program – once a source of great pride and inspiration (until we got tired of it – “been there, done that.”).?
??????????? Then I pivot to the dark side of science.?
??????????? In human history scientific advances often came with a terrible physical price.? This might illustrate the maxim of “no good turn goes unpunished.”? It also underscores the moral neutrality of science.? Science is not moral, it is not immoral, it is amoral.?
??????????? The development of nuclear weapons gave humans the ability to destroy all human life on planet earth and to take most plants and animals with us.? Likewise, the scientific advances that increased lifespan and reduced infant mortality created a population bomb that threatens human existence and ecological catastrophe.? Technology has allowed humans to exploit resources in a way that has caused dramatic and vast environmental devastation; humans now create more damage than most natural calamities ever seen on earth.? These problems were created by science, and continue to be created by science, but the solutions will not come from science.? These solutions demand changes in the political and ethical field.?
??????????? Science can and will also be applied to military technology.? I throw out the thesis that “Science is now, was in the past, and always will be primarily an effort to increase military technology.? And in this effort it has been extraordinarily successful.
? ????????? Throughout history powerful people hired famous scientists, now known for their scientific contributions, to apply their intellects to the military arts. All of those drawings that Leonardo DaVinci made of fanciful flying machines, armored vehicles, and double hulled ships – he did them on the clock as part of his day job.? The French Crown employed greatest chemist of the age, Antoine Lavoisier, to improve the quality and expand the quantity of French gunpowder; it was this high quality powder that gave Colonists on the American continent an advantage against the British.? (Lavoisier’s tax collecting business later found him on the wrong side of the kindly Dr. Guillotine’s invention.). ?Even today a large percentage of the global engineering talent remains devoted to the development of weapons systems and advancing the goals of defense contractors.?
??????????? Technological advances made warfare more terrible.? New weapons produced new violent approaches that dramatically increased the level of devastation.? In wars early in human history, a geographic divide between the warring armies and civilians meant that the devastation occurred only on the battlefield (at least for the attacking army). ?New technology forced the involvement of much or most of the civilian population.? The ultimate example of this came with the invention of nuclear weapons.? As science increased the destructive power of weapons, the social sciences did not generate a similar increase in the problem solving or negotiation techniques that would eliminate their use.
??????????? In the book “Science Goes to War,” the author Ernest Volkman argues that the first and primary goal driving science has always been the development of better weapons.?
??????????? “[T]he greatest spur to science has been war, a relationship that began from the first moment men began to think of better ways to kill each other.? The clubs and spears that made man an unrivaled hunter also could be used for war; later, the tools that revolutionized early agriculture were just as efficient as killing tools.? …Very early, mankind grasped an essential truth that underlies the history of all warfare:? he who has the greatest weapons wins.? From the double-edged sword to the thermonuclear missile, success in war has been defined, ultimately, by the ability to develop superior weapons.?
??????????? And that, in turn, involves greater science.? It was the impetus for greater weapons that was chiefly responsible for the birth and growth of science, the uniquely human achievement that has made mankind the master of the planet-and, in the end, threatened to destroy it.? Science taught men how to slaughter each other more efficiently, how to blow things up, how to kill men at great ranges, how to subject an entire population to terror, how to wreak total destruction, and how to harness the power of the sun to kill hundreds of thousands of people in one blow.? Virtually every modern scientific discipline is rooted in war and the relentless drive for better and bigger weapons to fight it-chemistry arose from the search for more efficient explosives, astronomy from naval warfare’s need for efficient navigation, mathematics from weapons ballistics, and metallurgy from the development of edged weapons and guns.?
??????????? Usually, the side with the better technology wins.
??????????? And there was always the hope that the next weapon was so horrible that it would actually prevent war.? Hiram Stevens Maxim invented the machine gun as a weapon so horrible that no one would every dare to wage war again.?? After witnessing the machine gun, the New York Times said in 1897, “These are the instruments that have revolutionized the methods of warfare, and because of their devastating effects, have made nations and rulers give greater thought to the outcome of war before entering… They are peace-producing and peace-retaining terrors.”? Of course armies and navies applied it immediately.? ??
??????????? The real bloodbaths occur when tactics have not adjusted to the new technologies.? In the American Civil war, rifled barrels improved firearm accuracy to the point that the Napoleonic tactics used by the oncoming army were not workable.? In World War I soldiers faced mechanized warfare for the first time:? machine guns, barbed wire, poison gas, airplanes, ultra-long-range artillery, flame-throwers, and tanks.? Machine guns made cavalry charges obsolete, although it took a little while to discover that at the beginning of the war.? This painful lesson is recounted in the Spielberg movie Warhorse:
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??????????? In class I started with a discussion of the 300 Spartan soldiers guarding the gates of Thermopylae against an entire Persian army.? The Zack Snyder film 300 was popular at the time.? I pointed out some of the errors in the film, or some of the incorporation of myth of the heroic small Spartan army guarding the “hot gates” against a million-man army; the defending Greek force was larger and the attacking Persian force was a fraction of that size.? But then I quote Herodotus who frankly identified the reason for Spartan success – longer spears and metal armor.?
??????????? While the tactical advantage of a hoplite phalanx played a role, Spartan superior military technology played a greater role than any heroism or grit. I point out that the best lines in the film are taken from Herodotus and were written centuries ago.
??????????? Then, like Shakespeare, I moved the class to 1415 to the fields of Agincourt. The heavily outnumbered English, tired and hungry from a long march, face an entrenched force of 15 thousand French soldiers and noblemen.? The five-to-one mismatch (likely a Shakespearian exaggeration) gives Henry V the ability to inspire his troops with the St. Crispin’s Day speech (I always preferred the muddy and bloodied Kenneth Branagh to the shiny armored Laurence Olivier).? I played the clip:? ??
??????????? After the battle, the Herald tells answers King Hal, “I tell thee truly Herald, I know if the day be ours, or no,” with “The day is yours.”? ?
??????????? Up to 10,000 French soldiers were killed, including many of their military leaders and nobility.? The English reported 112 losses, although some scholars place the losses closer to 600.? This disparate casualty rate had less to do with inspiring Shakespearian speeches than with the technological superiority of the Welsh longbow.? Superior military technology triumphs.?
??????????? I then move the class (via Powerpoint) to 1532 on the plains of Cajamarca where an army of 100 foot soldiers, 67 cavalry, with 3 arquebuses, and 2 cannon commanded by Francisco Pizarro ambushed an Incan force of tens of thousands commanded by Atahualpa.? As the Aztecs had learned with their earlier encounter with Hernan Cortez, European technology could compensate for a disparity of numbers.
??????????? The French figured out how to use the application of gunpower in a literal barrel filled with projectiles, and after centuries of back-and-forth, the English never again occupied French soil. Later, the barrel was made out of iron and artillery changed warfare forever. ?This firepower made castles obsolete.? The Spanish figured out how to miniaturize the cannon and developed the strategy of “how do you neutralize artillery? – you neutralize the artillerymen.”? ?
??????????? On the sea, the threat of a ship of the line could be measured in how many cannons it carried.? Often, the ship with the most cannons one.? Steam powered metal ships replaced wind-powered wooden ships.?
??????????? In the lecture, I then move to Japan and the climax scene from the movie “The Last Samurai.”? ?The samurai who had devoted their entire lives to development of their martial arts skills make a dramatic cavalry charge against the modernizing Japanese army with their American advisors.? It’s modern weapons against the tradition of the samurai.?
??????????? Young and untrained soldiers erase this advantage of a lifetime of disciplined training with Gatling guns.? This movie outlines a major historical event.? Japan, who closed itself off for centuries, had modernized to the point that they shocked the war by stomping a traditional European world power in the Russo-Japanese War.
??????????? Students often don’t have an understanding of the scale of the slaughter of World War I and World War II.?
??????????? You cannot help but being moved by the staggering loss, the waste, and the stupidity caused by mechanized war.? Trigger warning:? don’t watch this on an empty stomach.?
??????????? Science always increases the body count.?
??????????? I then moved on to nuclear weapons, beginning with Trinity, Fat Man, and Little Boy. And that's the next level of destruction.
Executive Director at BABEC: Inspiring ALL students to engage in science by empowering teachers
3 个月KB's Henry V is the best and the score! ??