Some of them worked for Nazi Germany or Stalinist regime or horrific Japanese medical "science" / torture so not all of them were working for freedom. Scientists sometimes say that science is neutral, and it's up to society to use the results wisely.
I appreciate that scientists don't always have freedom of choice under a brutal regime.
There's interesting stuff about President Truman's anti-Nazi directive (tl;dr: Don't use scientists who were (or were supportive of) Nazis) and the way that was ignored.
German scientists that helped the US, to whatever extent they helped the US, did help to preserve our civilization, even if they tried to destroy it during the war. But let's ignore them; I'm talking about the thousands of American scientists and engineers worked on defense applications in the 20th century, and to some extent about those of Britain, Canada, France, and so forth.
Comments
Some of them worked for Nazi Germany or Stalinist regime or horrific Japanese medical "science" / torture so not all of them were working for freedom. Scientists sometimes say that science is neutral, and it's up to society to use the results wisely.
I appreciate that scientists don't always have freedom of choice under a brutal regime.
I was talking about American scientists ("our civilization"), though the other western allies would qualify as well. Sorry about the confusion.
EDIT: My reply sounds bickering. Sorry, it isn't meant to!
Stalin was a western ally. Stalin was, without doubt, evil.
German scientists worked for the US; they were recruited through Operation Paperclip.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip)
There's interesting stuff about President Truman's anti-Nazi directive (tl;dr: Don't use scientists who were (or were supportive of) Nazis) and the way that was ignored.
> Stalin was a western ally.
No he wasn't; he was just an ally. The term "western allies" excludes the Soviet Union, that's why I intentionally chose it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Allies
German scientists that helped the US, to whatever extent they helped the US, did help to preserve our civilization, even if they tried to destroy it during the war. But let's ignore them; I'm talking about the thousands of American scientists and engineers worked on defense applications in the 20th century, and to some extent about those of Britain, Canada, France, and so forth.