Science And Ethics Poem by Paul Hartal

Science flies the triumphal banners
of magnificent human accomplishments.
Mind you, among many other things,
it provides us with antibiotics, electricity
and plastics, and (without the use of
modern computers) it put astronauts
on the moon.

However, science is a dangerous endeavor.
It has allowed increasing global pollution.
It also ushered in a permanent threat
of nuclear annihilation.
Without science Auschwitz and Hiroshima
would not have been possible.

Thus science is a paradoxical enterprise.
Its massive pillars are tested facts.
It prides itself in being objective.
It pursues the spiralling course of truth
but truth remains constantly elusive.

Science lacks intrinsic ethical safeguards.
It has no built-in values serving as its
moral compass.It alienates itself
from human emotions, aiming at
transcending good and evil.

Consequently, love and compassion
are excluded from the edifice of
the scientific method.
Although specialized skills, cold observation,
mathematical exactitude not necessarily
ostracise, nevertheless, they leave poetry,
heart and flowers standing behind the fence.