• Question: If you could go back and change anything that happened in scintific history would you?

    Asked by billybob99 to Angus, Christian, Hannah, Laura, Simon on 26 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Hannah Bentham

      Hannah Bentham answered on 25 Jun 2013:

      Actually I don’t think I would. All scientific research has positive points, and only the rare occasions is it used for evil purposes.

      As a society we need to evolve and take responsibility but there’s no going back. But if we could change things in the past, then we never know what impact that would have on the future. For evidence, see the Back to the Future films 🙂

    • Photo: Laura Roberts Artal

      Laura Roberts Artal answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      I agree with Hannah 99%. We can only learn about how to use science in a positve way, if we learn from our mistakes in the past.
      There is 1% of me though, that really wishes we could take back the atomic bomb. Without the research that went into creating it, we wouldn’t understand as much as we do about nuclear physics, so it had huge positives. I just struggle with all the damage that it did!

    • Photo: Simon Holyoake

      Simon Holyoake answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      I think I would leave well alone, as Hannah says, we learn useful things, even when things go wrong or cause lives to be lost

      meddling in the past would have unimaginable effects on the present (and future) as changes affect other things which affect other things, and there is no way to know if this would be for the better or worse

    • Photo: Angus Ferraro

      Angus Ferraro answered on 26 Jun 2013:

      Science is affected by all parts of history. For example, lots of the scientific advances that came from space exploration were a result of the rivalry between the USA and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Also, science affects all parts of history – without scientific advances such as the steam engine the Industrial Revolution would never have kicked off. It would be difficult to change things without some pretty major consequences.

      Perhaps I would go back in time and tell Marie Curie that radiation was dangerous and would lead to her early death. If she had lived longer she might have made all sorts of new discoveries.

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