27 December 2011 | But Scientists Can Never Do Wrong!

I think this article is a very good primer for how wrong science can actually go potentially wrong, and what happens when good intentions are clearly going to lead to something bad.

Now, don't get me wrong: nothing bad has happened yet and I'm certainly not rooting for an airborne version of A(H5N1) to appear. Well, it already *has* appeared and unnaturally too, because scientists felt it was a good idea to cause a mutation in the existing virus to see if an airborne version could be made. There's your good intention. The result? Yes. There's your accident waiting to happen.

The U.S. government paid for this research, and it's asked journals not to publish the salient details out of security fears. Some scientists have questioned whether this is censorship: I question why someone feels the need to bring up a First Amendment issue when faced with an overriding security issue. And the most important fact is that the details have already been made public in various presentations before the government weighed in. And no matter what letters you have after your name, people love to gossip and shoot their mouths off, so it's only a matter of time before some enterprising person out there finds what he needs.

Then you can let the blackmail begin.