There are two parts to the human dilemma. One is the belief that the end justifies the means. That push-button philosophy, that deliberate deafness to suffering, has became the monster in the war machine. The other is the betrayal of the human spirit: the assertion of dogma that closes the mind, and turns a nation, a civilisation, into a regiment of ghosts--obedient ghosts or tortured ghosts.
It is said that science will dehumanize people and turn them into numbers. That is false, tragically false. Look for yourself. This is the concentration camp and crematorium at Auschwitz. This is where people were turned into numbers. Into this pond pond were flushed the ashes of some four million people. And that was not done by gas. It was done by arrogance. It was done by dogma. It was done by ignorance. When people believe that they have absolute knowledge, with no test in reality, this is how they behave, This is what men do when they aspire to the knowledge of the gods.
Science is a very human form of knowledge, We are always at the brink of the unknown, we always feel forward for what is to be hoped, Every judgment in science stands on the edge of error, and is personal. Science is a tribute to what we can know although we are fallible. In the end the words were said by Oliver Cromwell: "I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible you may be mistaken".
I owe it as a scientist to my friend Leo Szilard, [threatened-of-life by the Nazi regime, as were Max Born, Erwin Schrodinger, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Thomas Mann, Bertolt Brecht, Arturo Toscanini, Bruno Walter, Marc Chagall, Enrico Fermi--in this sharing the threat to Galileo and Socrates by other regimes] I owe it as a human being to the many members of my family who died at Auschwitz, to stand here by the pond as a survivor and a witness. We have to cure ourselves of the itch for absolute knowledge and power. We have to close the distance between the push-button order and the human act. We have to touch people. [Each other.]
Recursion begins at home... and "Gordon Joly Lives Next Door"