Working for the Military
Someone asked me today whether, if I manage to get a graduate science fellowship from the Department of Defense, I would have any reservations about working “for the military.” If the military is interested in enough to pay me money, wouldn’t I be working on something that could potentially be used to harm people?
I don’t think so. Many parts of the government, from the NIH to the Department of Energy to the Department of Defense, sponsor basic science research, because they believe that promoting and culturing future scientists in research aligns with their overarching goals. The DOD states that it thinks that the promotion of science and engineering talent in the U.S. is essential for the country’s future security and world power.
In any case, any pertinence my research might have to defense or warfare would be indirect at best. It’s not like I’m working on developing neurotoxins or biological weapons. The closest I would ever get to working on actual products for the DoD would probably be biosensors that detect dangerous pathogens, or ways to disable them. I don’t really see that as an interesting research path, but maybe far into the future, I might get interested in it.
But in any case, most likely, if my research is interesting to the military, it would be because of some side effect of my research, or an unintended application. You can’t stop people from working on deadlier weapons, and people in the military will always be working on more effective ways of killing people. Basic science research has to go on and can’t be paralyzed by remote possibilities of unintended abuse. Almost anything that science produces can be perverted to use for destruction, from engineering virulent strains of bacteria and viruses to making nuclear bombs and finding key points in countries to maximize disruption. I can’t, say, stop researching ways to solve mathematical equations on computers just because the military might use those techniques to simulate explosions or bioweapons. Such knowledge could, say, lead to better ways to maximize food production, or lead to a better understanding of brain seizures, or make it easier to produce medicines. Equations don’t kill people; people kill people.
Science contains a sort of optimism that knowledge will improve society, and I believe it with all my heart. People now live longer lives, happier lives, and can do more with each hour of each day than those of times past. I will do the best I can to prevent people from killing people, but the inexorable march of knowledge continues to the betterment of mankind.
