Science or Democracy?

Imagine the following situation: It's armageddon. All hell has broken loose, the world is about to come to an end. In his sympathy for the lot of his creation, God descends from the heavens and tells us that he shall make a last ditch attempt to save us. But by some divine whim, he decrees that in his future exiestence, man is only allowed to have only one of the following: science or democracy. Man must choose and keep only one of both.

I have baffled myself over this question over the last couple of days and predictably enough i do not have an answer. I do not know if there is a satisfactory means for arriving at an answer to questions such as this. I mean if man can claim that he has achieved anything substantial in the period of his existence on earth, I believe it can be attributed to either of these two things. Science has changed our lives and taught us all we know about ourselves and the world(and beyond). But democracy has defined our success as a civilization as opposed to the failures of the generations that have preceded us. How are we to choose one over the other?

If we choose science and let go of democracy, we'll slip into chaos. Lawlessness will prevail or we shall go back to the days of repression under dynastic rule, subject to the whims and fancies of a few.

If we choose democracy and let go of science, we are doomed to remain ignorant unto eternity, with no hope of moving forward as a species.

I once read an excerpt from a book by Bertrand Russel, in which he argued that scientific knowledge is useless, even dangerous without the sense to apply it correctly. He essentially implied that our emotional quotient is perhaps as important and indispensable as our intelligence quotient. Man has achieved great feats and shall continue to do so armed with science and tools of scientific enquiry, but if science is not guided by good sense and applied positively, we may soon face annihilation.

So maybe questions such as this one are among those which have no answer. You or I may have an opinion, but I am loath to believe that anyone can claim with certainty that any one argument is more rational than the other. In fact as humans I think we should be happy that we are confounded by such questions. It only means that we are mature enough to fathom the importance of both science and democracy. For once maybe,no answer is a good answer.