Letter: The best, and the worst, of science

Sir: Tom Wilkie ("Science is for everyone, whatever they try to tell you", 25 March) says that science is one of the "pinnacles of our civilisation's achievement" but he ignores misuse. For every individual helped by modern anaesthetics, there is another whose life has been destroyed by modern mass weapons, including the atomic bomb; for every child who can enjoy a video game, there is another who has either been aborted, or whose life is lived in fear or starvation due to the use of modern technologies for oppression or over-exploitation.

Scientists are like flippant and irresponsible parents who would send their five-year-old child out to play with a loaded machine-gun. Science is at the nadir, as well as the pinnacle, of the 20th century.

Yours faithfully,

EDWARD TURNBULL

Gosforth, Northumberland