As one of them put it: "We just didn't think, OK ? "
Never give an atom bomb to theists on the warpath, would be a good rule of responsible science.
In fact, no potentially dangerous science is safe in the unsupervised hands of theists like this guy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Edwards_Ivins
Theists apparently cannot handle sophisticated ethical judgments requiring self-restraint - witness the US response to 9/11, the AQ response to the Kuwait mess, Hiroshima, pogroms, various mass murders such as Armenia and Rwanda, etc. I agree with you there, SAM. Scientists have a responsibility to protect the innocent from these kinds of hazards in the hands of the ethically immature and technologically naive.
It's what worries Americans about Iran's nuke program -we've seen hardcore theists in action with nukes, and it wasn't pretty. You give thests an A-bomb, they drop it on a city full of people. We've just been lucky with Pakistan, so far. And Washington.