Restrain the World?!

Chet Raymo's piece, "A Measure of Restraint," provides tragic anecdotes where curiosity kills the cat (which in this case are a bunch of humans). He argues that "the unexamined quest for knowledge is hemmed with peril" which portrays his worry for the unrestrained advancement of science. Raymo doesn't want new scientific improvement without the necessary precautions and research to back it up. However, I strongly disagree with his stance on this topic.

To me, it seems like Raymo is too afraid of change. You need to take some leaps in order to discover something astounding. If past inventors or scientists had followed his point of view, then we wouldn't have things like electricity or airplanes. Benjamin Franklin and the Wright Brothers both took dangerous risks to advance the human race. Also, diseases and cancers would be ravaging the world because vaccines wouldn't be a thing. If it was up to Raymo, he probably would have declared that the cons outweigh the pros as the vaccines could do more harm than good. He would be too worried about having another incident like the discovery of radium.

I agree that we need some evidence for these projects but being overly careful isn't a good thing. By believing that "Beauty's nothing but the beginning of Terror" (Rilke) is way too pessimistic. Now, I'm not saying that we should suddenly build bigger nuclear bombs or weaponized robots. It's just that being excessively cautious would hold back the world's progress. Go big or go home, right?