Feb 13, 2006
A Faustian Pact with the State
The current issue of the Times Literary Supplement carries an interesting review of two new biographies of prominent twentieth-century British scientists. One was the soft-leftist Solly Zuckerman. The other was the unrepentant Marxist J. D. Bernal, who was the first to coin the phrase"weapons of mass destruction" (about nuclear weapons). Each made a Faustian pact with the state.
"These two remarkable men found their lives intersecting during the Second World War and their respective careers more generally touched on the engagement of science with politics that was such a feature of twentieth-century political life. . . . They worked together in 1941 on an analysis of the British bombing of German cities, put to this task by political masters who hoped that their work would buttress Churchill’s belief that Germany could be defeated by bombing alone. . . . Interestingly, however, both men eventually came to distrust the role of science in politics."
Read Christopher Coker’s thoughtful account of their lives, especially within the service of the state, here.
"These two remarkable men found their lives intersecting during the Second World War and their respective careers more generally touched on the engagement of science with politics that was such a feature of twentieth-century political life. . . . They worked together in 1941 on an analysis of the British bombing of German cities, put to this task by political masters who hoped that their work would buttress Churchill’s belief that Germany could be defeated by bombing alone. . . . Interestingly, however, both men eventually came to distrust the role of science in politics."
Read Christopher Coker’s thoughtful account of their lives, especially within the service of the state, here.