Countdown To The Man-Made Biotech Apocalypse
Should the “Doomsday Clock” be moved ahead because of threats from biotechnology?
By Lawrence Krauss
Slate.com
Shortly after the end of World War II, Albert Einstein, referring to the new global danger of nuclear weapons, uttered his now famous warning: “Everything has changed, save the way we think.” Accordingly, he and Robert Oppenheimer established the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists to help warn the public about the dangers of nuclear war.
Perhaps the most visible face of the bulletin—for which I am currently co-chair of the board of sponsors—is the “Doomsday Clock.” Created in 1947, the clock graphically reflects how close humanity might be to human-induced apocalypse, in terms of the “number of minutes to midnight”—at which time, presumably, time itself will no longer matter.
In total, the clock has been adjusted 20 times, moving as close to two minutes to midnight in 1953, after the United States and Soviet Union each first tested thermonuclear devices, and as far as 17 minutes to midnight in 1991, after the United States and Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Currently, it is set at five minutes to midnight.
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