Science is a Useful Servant But a Bad Master:
Science is the modern version of magic. The 20th century is called the Age of Science. Science is useful if a man uses it for comfort and happiness, but science becomes a devil if man allows it to be his master; it will send mankind to perdition. If science is man’s servant, its service is a blessing; but if science becomes a master, it becomes a tyrant and a murderer of humanity. We are living in the atomic age or the hydrogen age. The question is- Shall man control science or shall science control the fate of man and destroy him utterly?
If science behaves like a servant, its services are excellent. The railways and motor cars combine speed with safety in traversing long journeys. The radio and the aeroplane have annihilated time and distance. The cinema and television provide entertainment and education. The telegraph and telephone carry messages expeditiously. The invention of new cures and miracle drugs has put a check on human suffering and disease. Germs die, men live. Fatal diseases are no longer fatal. The score of death is lower; the average age of a man is higher. Science renders a thousand services that every child knows.
But the trouble starts when science becomes a master. We are told that if in World War III, a score of hydrogen bombs are exploded in any part of the globe, the whole of mankind will perish. A few million will die on the spot, but the radioactivity will so poison the atmosphere, that all the remaining people too will wither and die within the next ten or twenty years. The atom bomb and hydrogen bomb do no service to man; they are only a signal for mass death and disaster. Here science is the master and man a helpless servant, waiting for doom, at the mercy of tyrant science.
When a servant begins to behave like a master, safety lies in dismissing such a servant. The same with science. Shri C. Rajagopalachari has advised America to sink all her atom bomb pile in the bottom of the Atlantic. You keep a dog to guard your door and not a tiger. The tiger would not behave as your servant; it may eat you up. Einstein, the greatest scientist, remarked that the war after World War III would be fought with bows and arrows. That means that a hydrogen war will completely destroy all civilization, and the world- if at all there is a world left- will start from the barbarous ages of bows and arrows.
Science is the search for truth and knowledge. That is not evil. Knowledge is power. Science has unravelled many mysteries of Nature and of the universe. If science works for the benefit of man, it is useful; but if it is out to massacre mankind then it is dangerous and mischievous. The hydrogen bomb brings the message that the end of the world is near. If science plots for the end of humanity, then science should go but humanity should not go. Science is made for man; man is not made for science. The hydrogen bomb and humanity cannot both live together in the same world. One of them must die. It is right that humanity should not die. Keep science as a servant; if it becomes our master, dismiss it and kill it.
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