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Some commentators on biotech, robotics and nanotech worry that when the genie is out of the bottle, the outcome may be impossible to control. They urge caution in "pushing the envelope". But we cannot reap the benefits of science without accepting some risks. The best we can do is minimise them. The typical scientific discovery has many applications, some benign, others less so. Even nuclear physics has its upside: its medical uses have saved more people than nuclear weapons actually killed.
The uses of academic research generally cannot be foreseen. Ernest Rutherford, the leading nuclear physicist of his time, famously said in the mid-1930s that nuclear energy was "moonshine"; the inventors of lasers did not foresee that an early application of their work would be to eye surgery; and the discoverer of x-rays was not searching for ways to see through flesh.
Science in the 21st century will present new threats more diverse and more intractible than nuclear weapons did. It will pose ethical dilemmas. But a blanket prohibition on all risky experiments and innovations would paralyse science and deny us all its benefits.
Scientists sometimes abide by self-imposed moratoria on specific lines of research. A precedent for this was the so-called "Asilomar declaration" in 1975 whereby prominent molecular biologists refrained from some experiments involving the then new technique of gene-splicing. Just last month, experts in the more advanced techniques of "synthetic biology" proposed a similar ban.
But a voluntary moratorium will be harder to achieve today: the academic community is larger, and competition (enhanced by commercial pressures) is more intense. To be effective, the consensus must be worldwide. If one country alone imposed regulations, the most dynamic researchers and companies would migrate to another that was more sympathetic or permissive. This is happening already in stem cell research.