Skip to main content

The Erice Statement

Written by Paul Dirac, Piotr Kapitza and Antonino Zichichi in August 1982, this statement is now supported by 10,000 scientists the world over.
*****
It is unprecedented in human history that mankind has accumulated such a military power to destroy, at once, all centres of civilisation in the world and to affect some vital properties of the planet.

The danger of a nuclear holocaust is not the unavoidable consequence of the great development of pure science.

In fact, Science is the study of the fundamental laws of nature.

Technology is the study of how the power of mankind can be increased.

Technology can be for peace or for war. The choice between peace and war is not a scientific choice. It is a cultural one: the culture of love produces peaceful technology. The culture of hatred produces instruments of war. Love and hatred have existed forever. In the Bronze and Iron Ages, notoriously pre-scientific, mankind invented and built tools for peace and instruments of war. In the so-called 'modern era' it is imperative that the culture of love wins.

An enormous number of scientists share their time between pure science research and military applications. This is a fundamental source for the arms race.

It is necessary that a new trend develops, inside the scientific community and on an international basis.

It is of vital importance to identify the basic factors needed to start an effective process to protect human life and culture from a third and unprecedented catastrophic war. To accomplish this it is necessary to change the peace movement from a unilateral action to a truly international one involving proposals based on mutual and true understanding.

Here are our proposals:

1. Scientists who wish to devote all of their time, fully, to study theoretically or experimentally the basic laws of nature, should in no case suffer for this free choice, to do only pure science.
2. All governments should make every effort to reduce or eliminate restrictions on the free flow of information, ideas and people. Such restrictions add to suspicion and animosity in the world.
3. All governments should make every effort to reduce secrecy in the technology of defence. The practise of secrecy generates hatred and distrust. To start a ban for military secrecy will create greater stability than offered by deterrence alone.
4. All governments should continue their action to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by additional nations or non-national groups.
5. All governments should make every effort to reduce their nuclear weapons stockpiles.
6. All governments should make every effort to reduce the causes of insecurity of non-nuclear powers.
7. All governments should make every effort to ban all types of nuclear tests in war technology.

Conclusion

Those scientists - in the East and in the West - who agree with this 'Erice Statement' engage morally themselves to do everything possible in order to make the new trend, outlined in the present document, to become effective all the world over and as soon as possible.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Leadership

Check out the parody of Memoirs of a Geisha by Bobby Lee. Hilarious. Here's stuff on America's best leaders . Speaking of leadership, what makes a great leader? Do you have to be the smartest on the team? Or the best coordinator? It must really depend on the organization and job, but in general all leaders have to share similar traits. For example, I saw a brilliant basketball game today, Duke vs. Wake Forest. It's clear that Duke's leader is JJ Redick. That's because he is the most effective scorer, but also I think his will to win leads the team to achieve. Of course he is putting in perhaps the most work by scoring and playing nearly the whole 40 minutes. But he is defintely not the best defender on the team. So a leader needs to certainly be very skilled, but not necessarily the best at everything. The vision and determination is what makes a leader. Not everyone is a natural born leader. Some are better than others, by talent and nature. But I think leadership...

Yes, Taiwan Can!

I saw this image somewhere, and I thought it was nice. I hope we can spread it around! I apologize for not giving full credit, but if it's yours, let me know!

Of Mice and Men

Here's an interesting story, mice sing ! Check out the sound clip at the bottom of the page. Apparently during courtship male mice sing. This was discovered when researchers let male mice sniff on female or male mice urine, and though the original intention was to see how the male brain differentiates the pheromones, they noticed a rather complex ultrasound pattern erupted when hetero (whether there are homo mice is a question) male mice smelled female pheromones. This places mice in the same league as some other complex singing beings such as birds and dolphins! This is interesting for many reasons, but one I can think of is since mice are relatively easy to manipulate genetically, and the fact that they utilize complicated vocal patterns to court mates means perhaps mice have some simple language abilities. So we may be able to understand how language and vocal abilities develop and play such a crucial role (obviously as in birds better singers get to procreate!) in animals. We a...