posted on Jan, 20 2011 @ 07:07 AM
In response to the OP, I must point out one small inadequacy with the idea that either scientists know more than they are telling, or we are all stark
raving, pants on head mad. For a start , you have to consider some points that you may have missed when arriving at your conclusion.
First and foremost, when a person is approached and offered work by a government, which may involve access to classified information, they are of
course asked to sign a declaration, a vow of secrecy. The name of the document varies according to nation, but the principles are largely similar no
matter where you are.
Some scientists will sign happily away thinking about all the research they will be able to do, and ignoring the moral implications of keeping the
secrets of a possibly corrupt government body. Others will refuse. However, governments are canny in the ways of leverage and persuasion. Say the
scientist they want on the team has prior for hacking, or for cooking meth in his student days, or even deep seated sociopathic tendancies and a
degree in particle physics which he achieved by creating a particle beam weapon capable of cutting a tank in half using a power source the size of a
9v battery. In those situations the government have leverage, with the hacker , the chemist, the physicist, and can exert pressures of silence upon
them, which would be more than capable of keeping their lips sealed.
Meanwhile, there will be your regular run of the mill geniuses, working on less contraversial projects in entirely seperate premises , and with an
entirely different command chain in terms of the people they report to , and crucialy no real idea that there are other brains at work , on deeply
disturbing projects.
Like in any societal demographic there are bright and beautiful thinkers in the ranks of the worlds geniuses and scientists, and as a counterpoint to
that there will be those who pursue thier intellectual work in such a manner as to put it above the considerations of morality and compassion. In all
things, in all peoples, no matter how you fractionalise a society, there is light, and there is dark. Intellectualy advanced persons are no different.
When governments , agencies of those governments, or the supposed black book agencies that opperate in total silence on behalf of various interests
globaly, approach someone for a contract or as a consultant on a matter, they first do detailed psychological profiling of several candidates for a
position. From these they pick the person who most suits the intellectual and moral aims of the project, and approach them. They take into
consideration before hand, any special knowledge they may hold about the targeted thinker, like the previously alluded to possibility of prior
offences and other leverage that can be applied, and assuming they find themselves in a position to be able to exert the required level of control
over the subject, the target of thier researches will likely as not be approached , and set to whatever task is asked of him.
In some cases specific minds will be targeted because they have had ideas which could not be expanded upon because in doing so they would be in
contravention of laws and regulations either nationaly or internationaly . A good example would be the red tape trip wire web that is the feild of
gene research, navigation through which is hard enough when your research has benevolent aims. Assuming that agencies un-named/unknown with an
interest in contraversial projects came upon an expert with a black past and a total disregard for morality, they would have thier perfect brain.
If the one single thing being requested of the scientist, is silence, and he or she is profiled and understood to be receptive to less than ideal
moral circumstances in their work, then why should a government not employ them? Also, do not forget that the secret services tend to aquire thier
people in terms of knowing of thier prowess,well before thier usefulness has been properly determined. They pick up on thier skills and intellect
early (by having recruiters installed in universities, colleges, and military training establishments) and follow it to see what the talent does.
Dependant on need, approaches are made, you get the picture.
We make to much of the difficulties surrounding the issue of how the governments of the world keep thier secrets, how thier shadowy tendrils lock
firmly about thier agents and employees. The methodology of silence is perfectly simple when one knows that although not every man has his price, some
certainly dont need thier arms broken to do unjust things. Just because a person is incredibly smart, does not mean they are moraly sound