"Many people and governments share the mistaken belief that science, with new, ingenious devices and techniques, can rescue us from the troubles we face without our having to mend our ways and change our patterns of activity. This is not so"
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Kendall aims straight at a comforting fantasy: that the same mindset that produced our crises can also, with enough gadgetry, painlessly reverse them. As a scientist, he isn’t rejecting science; he’s rejecting the way societies outsource moral and political responsibility to science, treating it like a neutral vending machine that dispenses solutions without requiring sacrifice.
The first clause is doing a lot of cultural work. “Many people and governments” widens the indictment from individual wishful thinking to institutional policy: leaders love tech fixes because they’re legible, fundable, and headline-friendly, while “mending our ways” implies regulation, redistribution, restraint, and admitting fault. Kendall’s phrasing makes “new, ingenious devices and techniques” sound like toys in the face of structural problems. He’s puncturing the PR sheen of innovation culture before it had that name.
The subtext is a warning about displacement: when we frame climate change, pollution, nuclear risk, or resource depletion as engineering puzzles alone, we protect entrenched behavior (consumption patterns, profit incentives, geopolitical habits) from scrutiny. Science becomes a scapegoat and a shield: blamed when fixes don’t arrive, invoked to postpone hard choices when they might.
Context matters here. Kendall was a prominent physicist and public voice on nuclear arms control and environmental limits in the late 20th century, when “breakthrough” rhetoric regularly promised to outrun consequences. The blunt finish - “This is not so” - reads like lab rigor repurposed for civic life: the data won’t bend to our desire for a clean escape hatch.
The first clause is doing a lot of cultural work. “Many people and governments” widens the indictment from individual wishful thinking to institutional policy: leaders love tech fixes because they’re legible, fundable, and headline-friendly, while “mending our ways” implies regulation, redistribution, restraint, and admitting fault. Kendall’s phrasing makes “new, ingenious devices and techniques” sound like toys in the face of structural problems. He’s puncturing the PR sheen of innovation culture before it had that name.
The subtext is a warning about displacement: when we frame climate change, pollution, nuclear risk, or resource depletion as engineering puzzles alone, we protect entrenched behavior (consumption patterns, profit incentives, geopolitical habits) from scrutiny. Science becomes a scapegoat and a shield: blamed when fixes don’t arrive, invoked to postpone hard choices when they might.
Context matters here. Kendall was a prominent physicist and public voice on nuclear arms control and environmental limits in the late 20th century, when “breakthrough” rhetoric regularly promised to outrun consequences. The blunt finish - “This is not so” - reads like lab rigor repurposed for civic life: the data won’t bend to our desire for a clean escape hatch.
Quote Details
| Topic | Science |
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