Research Papers Quotes
Kahn was the leading scientist behind the Pakistan nuclear weapons program. However, he then was personally involved in not only selling nuclear secrets to other counties but to terrorists as well. He personally enriched himself while enabling nuclear proliferation in the world. The article was an expose of his dishonest and illegal activities. The Pakistan government was in a bind. Kahn was a national hero, the only Pakistani who had ever won the Nobel Prize in a Scientific Field. Convicted and then pardoned by the President, but he was put under house arrest and surveillance and banned from any activity involving technical assistance to others. Kahn’s religious bigotry towards Hindus as disclosed by his letter made him even more of an international pariah. See {586385} for other attacks on his critics.
This quotation illustrates the problem the politician and citizens have in trying to understand scientific issues. Most fields are amendable to learning much about by reading professional articles. Laymen can read legal opinions and lean much from them. Politicians can read articles about public opinion or a new form insurance policy. But it is generally impossible for the non scientifically trained person to even read much of the literature to try and learn more. This is why without scientific literacy, citizens and politicians alike will have great difficulty in integrating new scientific advances in our society. In the last 50 years much of economics and financing have reached the same state as the sciences. Officials who are supposed to regulate areas cannot understand the new developments of what they are trying to regulate.
