• Question: have you ever been involved in scientific warfare, iv filled my sketching book with designs for the future.........., what do you think of war and how to deal with it? Have you ever protested against it before?

    Asked by zillage1 to Carol, Ellie, John, Philip, Rebecca on 29 Jun 2012.
    • Photo: Rebecca Lacey

      Rebecca Lacey answered on 29 Jun 2012:

      Hi zillage1

      No I have never been involved in Scientific warfare but I have been involved in heated debates between different groups of scientists – not sure whether this counts or not, probably not!

      I don’t think war is a great thing especially when lots of civilians and innocent people get hurt. I have signed petitions against war before (for example the Iraq war)

    • Photo: Carol White

      Carol White answered on 1 Jul 2012:

      I’ve never been involved with scientific warfare either and I doubt I ever will be.

      I find war a difficult thing to deal with, especially when so many innocent bystanders have been killed or affected by war in the past. Rarey does war achieve what it was originally declared for, and I’ll always campaign for a non-miliary solution.

      (P.s. I’m not anti-military – they do an incredible job protecting us in the world we live in and all credit to the brave men and women who have volunteered for what must be a difficult job)

    • Photo: John Welford

      John Welford answered on 2 Jul 2012:

      It depends what you mean by Scientific warfare? When fighting got beyond simply punching the other person you could say it got scientific. Very soon after they started making swords I bet they started thinking about the best size and shape of sword for killing someone. So I would say that almost all modern warfare is “Scientific” in some way.

      You’ll see from my profile that I used to work in defence, so I have done research that relates to warfare. I’m not sure how we should deal with war, that is more a question for politics than for science! I would say that simply being involved in research isn’t the same as going to war. It’s is never the scientists that make the decision on that sort of thing, but if the decision does get made then we obviously want our military to be as well equipped and protected as possible.

      I’ve never protested against war as I’ve never felt like I’m as well informed as those that make the big decisions about going war.

      I think it’s great that you have a sketchbook of designs for the future! The way wars are fought is changing really fast at the moment, largely driven by science and technology. People are even now talking about wars fought entirely on the internet! There are also some really interesting non-lethal weapons being developed, like sticky foams that can be sprayed onto people sticking them to the ground. There is also a whole area of “directed-energy weapons” being developed that don’t fire a projectile at all!

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