R.A. Fisher (one of the greatest statisticians, geneticists and evolutionary biologists of the last century) was a diehard opponent of the ‘tobacco causes cancer’ claim, too.
How is Google evil?
A bright young medical student with a deep love for art, philosophy and music. Graduated cum laude, and was noted for having remarkable verbal skills and being able to simplify complex ideas to audiences. Described as friendly, handsome, and patriotic, and well-liked by friends and colleagues.
And then . . . Well . . .
A respected doctor who worked to fight malaria, typhus, yaws, and other tropical diseases among the poor in his impoverished homeland, who affectionately called him Papa Doc.
What about Albert Einstein? A respected physicist who went to work on the Manhattan Project. And unlike some other people on this list, there was never any doubt as to what they were working on: a weapon of mass destruction.
Einstein didn’t work on the Manhattan Project. At least not directly. He reluctantly signed a letter that might have helped lead to it’s inception.
…at least partly motivated, if I’m remembering correctly, by the fear that the Nazis might develop nuclear weapons first, and that that would be Bad. Even those who worked directly on the bomb don’t automatically get stamped Evil, IMHO.
I thought that show was a documentary.
Manhattan? No, it isn’t.
As a child, he was so beloved by his people that the mere sight of him wearing his adorable little army boots stopped a serious mutiny … so he got the nickname “little boots” …
… and when he became emperor, his first few months were, allegedly, just fine.
Only after a serious illness, his personality appeared to completely change, and he became (allegedly) a monster of cruelty and degeneracy.
I have to say that this thread is an education, its for stuff like this that I read the Straightdope.
That’s worth a thread in itself, surely working on weapons is at least morally questionable, how can you completely divorce your work from the possible end consequences?
Newer and better weapons are frequently necessary to defeat evil regimes.
Furthermore, most weapons technology has non-military applications, and vice versa. To take the obvious example, the Manhattan Project was a precursor to nuclear power as well as nuclear weapons. Nuclear power has never lived up to its promise as a cheap and renewable energy source, but that could not have been known at the time.
Completely motivated by that fear. Einstein said afterwards, in an interview with Newsweek, that had he known the Nazis would not complete an atomic bomb, he would not have written the letter, and would have done nothing.
A nit: Leo Szilard wrote the letter. All Einstein did was sign it.
I was thinking more along the lines of WWII R&D scientists working on improved planes and missiles during the war, and of Cold War scientists developing weapons for deterrence-effect. I doubt any but a teeny-tiny few were doing it because they got a kick out of developing weapons and liked the idea that their work would cause death and destruction. If any of them were working for a cause, it was to defend the US/USSR against their perceived enemies, which is a noble cause and not evil. A lot likely did it because it paid well and the noble part was secondary.
Put more succinctly, the guy working at the handgun factory could just as easily tell himself he’s making weapons to keep the peace for law enforcement as he is for thugs to rob and rape people. That guy making them for cops isnt’ doing anything evil in my book.