Word: doomsdayers
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1970-1979
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...public cannot be asked to swallow, without questioning, the financing of research that has been called both the hope for mankind and a shortcut to doomsday...
Although the scientists left Asilomar thinking that they had allayed public fear about their work, they had only managed to fan it. Newspapers, which had until then paid scant attention to the story of recombinant DNA, erupted with scare headlines, alarming the nation with exaggerated doomsday prophecies. Two months later, Ted Kennedy held his first hearings on the new genetics. Some scientists, joined by politicians, began questioning whether the molecular biologists should do their own policing. Said one: "This is probably the first time in history that the incendiaries formed their own fire brigade...
Henry Kissinger once complained that the Pentagon was crediting its long-range cruise missile with being a cure for everything but the common cold. It may not be the ultimate doomsday weapon, but this armed drone, which looks a bit like a stunted jet plane, promises to become one of the most versatile weapons in the U.S. arsenal-and the Russians have good reason to be impressed...
...number of doomsday arguments have been raised against the Concorde, as well as against the ill-fated Boeing SST that was scrapped in 1971. There were prophecies that supersonic aircraft would emit such great quantities of water vapor that a permanent cloud barrier would shut out the sun; this "greenhouse" effect would dangerously raise the earth's surface temperature. There were also predictions of skin cancer epidemics: nitrogen oxides released by the SSTs would destroy the ozone layer that partly shields the earth against the sun's lethal ultraviolet radiation. Then too, the SST's fumes were...
...excitement over new achievements, like snapshots from Mars, seems to wane with the closing words of the evening news. Sci-Tech's promises for the future, far from being welcomed as harbingers of Utopia, now seem too often to be threats. Fears that genetic tinkering might produce a Doomsday Bug, for example, bother many Americans, along with dread that the SST's sonic booms may add horrid racket to the hazards (auto fumes, fluorocarbons, strontium 90) that already burden...