Science Quote by Joseph Rotblat

Rotblat’s line has the cool snap of a scientist refusing to grant the bomb its usual aura of tragic necessity. The key move is his inversion of the default Cold War premise: that nuclear weapons, however horrifying, “keep the peace.” By insisting there is “no evidence” a nuclear-free world would be dangerous, he frames deterrence not as hard-headed realism but as an untested story we tell ourselves. It’s an evidentiary challenge disguised as a summary.

The subtext is moral, but it’s moral through method. Rotblat doesn’t thunder about evil; he talks like someone marking up a faulty lab report. “No evidence” is a scalpel: it suggests that the pro-nuclear position rests on faith, post-hoc rationalization, and survivorship bias (we haven’t had a nuclear war, therefore the weapons must be stabilizing) rather than proof. The phrase “On the contrary” pivots from skepticism to a bolder claim: safety isn’t merely compatible with disarmament; it’s more likely.

Context matters because Rotblat isn’t a distant critic. He worked on the Manhattan Project, then left when Germany’s atomic threat evaporated, later helping found the Pugwash Conferences and becoming one of the era’s most credible disarmament voices. That biography turns the quote into a kind of insider’s heresy: the person who helped build the machine is questioning the mythology that keeps it running.

“As I will show later” is also strategic. It signals rigor and patience, but it’s a rhetorical dare: if you want to keep the most catastrophic tools ever made, bring data, not vibes.