I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.
Interpretation
The quote warns that science may serve the interests of those in power instead of contributing to human happiness.
Bertrand Russell expresses a concern that the advancements and applications of science could be co-opted by dominant groups to reinforce their power and control, rather than being used to enhance the well-being and happiness of all individuals. This reflection raises important ethical questions about the role of science in society and its potential to either uplift humanity or perpetuate inequality.
In practice
In a discussion about the ethical implications of new technologies, this quote can highlight the need for responsible use of science.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.
We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men and women are created equal.
This world owes all its forward impulses to people ill at ease.
I liked looking on at other people in crucial situations. If there was a road accident or a street fight or a baby pickled in a laboratory jar for me to look at, I'd stop and look so hard I never forgot it.
Why should our bodies end at the skin, or include at best other beings encapsulated by skin?
I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it's happening.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.