"If, on occasion, the knowledge brought by science leads to an unhappy end, this is not to the discredit of science but is rather an indication of an imperfect ability to use wisely the gifts placed within our hands"
About this Quote
Kusch’s line is a scientist’s preemptive moral defense, delivered with the calm certainty of someone who has watched “progress” get hauled into court. The key move is the grammatical pivot: blame doesn’t attach to science, only to “an imperfect ability” to use it. That phrasing quietly relocates responsibility from laboratories to societies, governments, corporations, and the human appetites that fund and deploy research. It’s not innocence so much as jurisdiction.
The subtext is shaped by the 20th century’s signature contradiction: physics and chemistry yielded antibiotics and electrification, then yielded poison gas, nuclear weapons, and industrial-scale surveillance. Kusch, a Nobel-winning physicist who lived through World War II and the Cold War, is speaking from inside a period when scientists were lionized as saviors and suspected as accomplices. His quote tries to preserve the legitimacy of scientific inquiry without denying that inquiry can end in catastrophe.
What makes it work is the soft theological metaphor: “gifts placed within our hands.” That turns scientific knowledge into a toolset bestowed (by nature, by human ingenuity, by history) rather than a vice in itself. It also flatters the reader into the role of steward: you’re not being asked to fear knowledge, you’re being asked to grow up.
There’s a strategic optimism here, but also a warning: if outcomes are “unhappy,” the crisis is civic and ethical literacy lagging behind technical capacity. The indictment isn’t of science’s reach; it’s of our wisdom’s short arms.
The subtext is shaped by the 20th century’s signature contradiction: physics and chemistry yielded antibiotics and electrification, then yielded poison gas, nuclear weapons, and industrial-scale surveillance. Kusch, a Nobel-winning physicist who lived through World War II and the Cold War, is speaking from inside a period when scientists were lionized as saviors and suspected as accomplices. His quote tries to preserve the legitimacy of scientific inquiry without denying that inquiry can end in catastrophe.
What makes it work is the soft theological metaphor: “gifts placed within our hands.” That turns scientific knowledge into a toolset bestowed (by nature, by human ingenuity, by history) rather than a vice in itself. It also flatters the reader into the role of steward: you’re not being asked to fear knowledge, you’re being asked to grow up.
There’s a strategic optimism here, but also a warning: if outcomes are “unhappy,” the crisis is civic and ethical literacy lagging behind technical capacity. The indictment isn’t of science’s reach; it’s of our wisdom’s short arms.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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