ABSTRACT
The chapter begins with an extended consideration of ideas about uncertainty and ignorance in science; it draws on recent work in Science and Technology Studies which takes us a little way from chemical and biological warfare. The truism that scientists pursue the creation of new knowledge can distract us from a significant characteristic of the relationship between secrecy and knowledge: the role of doubt, uncertainty and ignorance. Laboratory studies have thrived on the juxtaposition of certain knowledge produced by scientists and the processes by which pervasive uncertainties are removed in the course of knowledge production. After the Second World War, chemical and biological weapons, together with atomic weapons, were classified by the United Nations under the rubric of weapons of mass destruction. A defensive policy regime implied a delimited research programme, restricted in terms of resources, status and autonomy for both the researchers and their advisors.
