Science and Evil

Abstract

This essay will consider first how scientific developments have enhanced the human capacity for evil. I will concentrate on instances where advances in science directly led to enhanced possibilities for weaponry. My key examples will be chemical warfare in World War I and atomic bombs in World War II. The second part of the essay will reflect on instances where scientific advances aid human understanding of harms. Here I will mention the discovery of anthropogenic climate change, and then discuss in more detail the way Darwinian thinking heightens our understanding of the theological challenges of both moral and natural evil. My conclusion is that the impact of the sciences is very diverse and ambiguous, highly dependent on context, but that its disclosures about the character of the natural world are of great value both practically and in my own discipline of philosophical theology.