Mary Shelley was a renowned author of English ethnicity. She wrote the infamous classical novel of Frankenstein. Shelley included a quote that arose some controversy. The quote is, “The labours of men [and women] of genius, however erroneously directed, scarcely ever fail in turning to the solid advantage of mankind,” (Mary Shelley). This quote may be true in some situations. There were men who were counter examples of the quote. Three men, Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Edison, and J. Robert Oppenheimer, were examples of how the quote is not black and white. Mary Shelley’s quote is not entirely truthful, but instead a gray area.
Shelley’s statement above is false. There are malevolent discoveries made by men and women of genius. Thomas Jefferson is an example of a creator of a malevolent finding. The Smithsonian said, “What Jefferson set out clearly for the first time was that he was making a 4 percent profit every year on the birth of black children. The enslaved were yielding him a bonanza, a perpetual human dividend at compound
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J. Robert Oppenheimer is an example of the error in the statement. Oppenheimer, as the brilliant scientist, helped create the nuclear bombs. Those bombs detonated in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II. Oppenheimer’ work qualified him as a man of genius. Oppenheimer created a weapon of mass destruction. It annihilated a mass of the Japanese population, including innocent civilians. Oppenheimer once said, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Oppenheimer states his responsibility for the deaths of the people. His discovery also indirectly erupted the nuclear arms race between nations. This was years after World War II. Today, countries still feel threatened by other countries’ possessions of warheads. Oppenheimer’s creation of the bomb still leaves a great negative impact upon the world. Therefore, Oppenheimer was a man genius who did not better