Doomsday Clock and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

In 1947, an obscure publication serving scientists seeking to understand the nature of the atom, placed a clock on its cover. This clock was set at 7 minutes to midnight.

This clock was called the "The Clock of Doom" and later the "Doomsday Clock." The concept was quite simple: midnight on the Doomsday Clock meant that nuclear war had begun.

For a complete history of this memorable semiotic timepiece: read Midnight Never Came by Mike Moore, present editor of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.

The Doomsday Clock was a paradigm clock as well. The creation of weapons capable of mass destruction, even to the extent of destroying all of civilization, marked the true beginning of the "planetary world view." For thousands of years the human race had thought and acted in terms of the family, the clan, the tribe, the city-state, the state, the race, the religion, the nation. With the detonation of two atomic bombs over Japanese cities and the rapid development of ballistic missiles, humans, willingly or forced by necessity, began to view themselves in terms of "the planet."

This was a paradigm change of great significance. From that time forward, all political action and thought took into account this new essential element: the ultimate human, territorial allegiance was to the planet which had given birth to life in all its diverse forms.

Midnight on the Doomsday Clock meant massive destruction and a grotesque step backward into anarchy, misery and untimely death. There is a developing view that midnight on the Paradigm Clock entails just the opposite: ascent to our place in a galactic culture which embraces all and extends to us the solutions to our most vexing dilemmas.

There are other views. We as a species are children in an ancient cosmos. It would be naive in extremis to conclude that the history of the post-paradigm world we approach will be delivered to us like presents from loving, benevolent parents. Thanks to a 50-year, entrenched government policy of secrecy and paternalism, we do not know the full history of the pre-paradigm period we have just lived. We do not know what our government has done in our name.

Further, we must assume our actions and choices will affect the outcome and tenor of the coming post-paradigm world. Is the Paradigm Clock a new version of the Doomsday Clock? Will midnight denote the beginning of another mode of destruction of human civilization or the most profound understanding of the universe and our place in it?

Mike Moore’s "Midnight Never Came" is a brief history of a previous paradigmatic transition marked by triumph and tragedy. As much as we know of the events of this period, we can not know enough. The histories of this and other transitions, however lesser in scope, are all we have as reference until such time as a fully developed body of thought is formed to lead us forward.

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Midnight Never Came
Doomsday Clock Chronicle
Brief History of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
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