Does science play a large enough role in the struggle against international terrorism?

1. Although I believe it is prudent to exercise some caution in the dissemination of information and technology in order to prevent potentially harmful applications of technological knowledge, I more firmly believe that overstating the threat of terrorism creates an unfortunate fortress mentality that will in the long-run have more negative impacts on cultural, social, political and technological growth. Scientists should be expected to be cognizant of the ethical, moral and social implications of the scientific knowledge and its consequential technological spin-offs, but they should most definitely NOT be called upon to make broad value judgments about this knowledge or its applications. (USA)

2. The reason may be very few of the individuals involved have a technical education. Also, some of our leaders in preventing domestic terrorism, do not impress me as being all that bright. (USA)

3. It will take time, direction, and resources before science reaches an appropriate level of effort toward the defense against terrorism. Hopefully, someone will be reading the constitution also. (USA)

4. You might note that one of the primary means for coming to terms with other nations is encouragement for students to learn their languages. Fifty years ago "scientists" were required to know two non-English languages. Now there is no requirement. How can illiterates communicate? (USA)

5. In modifying a no vote I think that the word probably is more nearly correct. Part of the problem for those of us who are retired is a lack of sound data. (USA)

6. Terrorism is largely a result of cultural and societal gaps that stretch to the point of bursting violently. Education leads to understanding leads to respect to leads to peace. Let's focus on the core of the terrorism problem, and not diddle away valuable resources (scientific minds and money) on treating the symptoms of terrorism in a conveniently economically profitable way, as most government bodies now urge us to. Try not to let yourself be pulled into the fear machine. New sensor technology is very exciting, so let's apply it in places where it is truly needed, like remote sensing our planet and universe, and protecting ourselves against environmental pollutants that we know will strike this year. (USA)

7. There is an immense amount of misinformation concerning the actual destructiveness and lethality of many of the so-called "weapons of mass destruction." I.e., all chemical and most biological weapons, in conditions of actual use, are little more dangerous than conventional explosive weapons. There is also grave misunderstanding of the dangers, particularly in the terrorist context, of the various forms of fissile materials. In particular, U235 at greater than 90% enrichment can be made into a gun-assembly multi kiloton weapon quite easily. And plutonium extracted from high-burn up fuel rods can easily be used to produce a "fizzle bomb" which, though unimpressive in nuclear terms, would likely have a yield of hundreds of tons of TNT -- enough to topple any skyscraper -- and sufficient prompt radiation to kill for hundreds of meters around it. The scientific community would do the larger community a great service by producing an understandable overview of such matters. (USA)

8. Science and technology play a role for offense and defense, but more important is "social justice". People with little hope are vulnerable to recruitment for aggressive acts. A world where the first priority of governments is to support commercial interests is counter productive to social justice, or at least for the past 500 years. Howard Zinn's book, A People's History of the US gives many examples. (USA)

9. Sciences and technologies play very important roles in every aspects of course including against terrorism. (China)

10. I'm not sure the administration understands the dynamics of the struggle with terrorism. There are fundamental concepts in systems science and operations analysis that seem to have been overlooked. The result is that the actions to date appear to have done little to stem the number and effects of terrorists. (USA)

11. A major root cause of the terrorism is our lack of energy independence and the Arab/Muslim world believing that we wish to control the oil underneath their sand. We do not need that oil if we can supply energy through alternative energy technology. And we can, more economically than from oil - by tapping the tremendous energy in high altitude winds. That can be done, but this technology, which does not contribute to global warming, is being ignored. (USA)

12. Too simple a question: In fact I misread it and should have answered No instead of Yes. Since I believe the administration is basing anti-terrorism actions on ideology instead of on the spectrum of sciences. Social Sciences and Physical and Biological Sciences. (USA)

13. Americans refer to terrorism as something that has materialized out of nowhere, a horde of aliens coming from outer space. It will not disappear until we realize that it is in fact a by-product of our own actions and life-style. The responsibility of science, as for any other human enterprise, is to oppose and counteract the huge inequalities that exist within and between different nations of THIS world. (USA)

14. If one considers the number of people who suffer worldwide, terrorism can be considered as a very minor problem. A few hundred, maybe thousands of people are killed each year due to terrorism, a ridiculous number compared to those affected by hunger, wars or diseases like AIDS and malaria. The number are even extremely small when compared to those caused by car accidents. Money should be spent according to the burden caused by terrorism. Fear is a bad counselor. (France)

15. In voting "no" I am not voting for more weapons technology research. Terrorism is caused by national governments being abusive towards foreign and domestic peoples. I vote for more social science research to understand the geopolitical motivations of terrorism so that we can learn how we are motivating people to become terrorists. Only then might we learn how we can change our own national policies and behaviors so that we stop motivating people to take revenge against us. (Norway)

16. If science were more influential, the U.S. would try to win the hearts and minds of the people who are angry and poor, not fueling their anger. As someone who lives within sight and smell of the World Trade towers, Bush's actions frighten me. He is jeopardizing my survival, and that of my children. (USA)

17. Science has not yet established scientifically if bad and good exist or if they are a dichotomy necessary only for human to relate to its surrounding. True science is objective at all levels and only for the purpose of advancement of knowledge. It must not be abused in a subjective matter such as politic. Perhaps if we concentrate on educating our people and politicians we can achieve an overall peace for all life. (USA)

18. I have been studying chemical terrorist agents for 25 years primarily looking for mechanisms of threat agents and antidotes of cyanide and other poisons. During that time no one from AAAS has ever contacted me in that area despite I have been a member of AAAS for over 38 years. This indicates a lack of communication in this area. (USA)

19. Global terrorism is at root a protest against overweening western and in particular, US arrogance and power. If you don't change that, "science" is as likely to make things worse are better. (USA)

20. I think the poll is asking the wrong question. I think a more appropriate question in the current global situation would be "do our governments do enough to prevent terrorism ?". Perhaps the western governments should start questioning why their policies provoke terrorism. (UK)

21. The war on terrorism requires more development, not basic science. It requires Night vision equipment, listening devices(electronic, sonar . .), spy equipment air quality and radiation sensors, heat sensors, etc. (Netherlands)

22. International terrorism has its roots on political basis. The only way to stop terrorism is to make a thorough and true analysis on the unjustice, racial, religious or economical pressure among those people who foster terror, and to do something to correct the problems. It is easy to understand that global economy and vast differences in the economical and social substructures among nations make the fundamentalists angry. Many of them seem to have a brilliant intellect. Scientific community can do a lot in this effort by educating scientists of the underdeveloped countries to help them to reach the cultural and economical level of the western societies. One example is my own country, Finland. After the second world war our researchers (including me), businessmen and politicians have spent a lot of time in the US or England learning new ways of thinking, better scientific or industrial methods, making life-long contacts with colleagues and starting collaborative projects. All this has been of mutual benefit for the US and Finland. When the level of living standard of a common man rises in the poor nations (including the oil-rich near east), the reasons of terrorism are gradually fading away. (Finland)

23. The failure is in the domain of non-proliferation, the controls on nuclear weapons materials. A secondary but crucial failure is in the science of poverty alleviation and other technical issues related to addressing the root causes of terrorism. (USA)

24. We need extensive expansion of R&D and deployment in the following areas: 1. explosive material with emphasis on detection of road side and car bombs. 2.Bioweapons detection 3.computer translation of threat languages(maybe, all ,major languages) 4.Detection devices for underground movement in remote areas. 5.dectection devices for human movement in remote areas. 6. psychological tools for better prisoner interrogation. and may others (USA)

25. Unfortunately, science is not taken seriously by most people in the country. Witness the hugh expenditures on various potions under the name of nutritional supplements and the unwillingness to listen to the hard scientific facts about that industry. Likewise, activists raise millions of tax-free dollars to promote causes such as preventing the use of animals in biomedical research. How can we interact with the public at large?? (USA)

26. The judgments that need to be made in the so-called war on terrorism are not scientific, but educated and informed involving matters of proportion, and sufficiency. (USA)

27. If scientific evidence was considered for weapons of mass destruction, we might not be in Iraq. The public is too paranoid about biological weapons without understanding what exactly is involved. We need unbiased scientific information to judge the threats. Also, microbiologists and virologists are not terrorists and should not be treated as such. (USA)