Even famous scientist can argue badly.
“The idea that the Haber-Bosch process has “brought nothing like shared prosperity” is an absolutely wild claim. Nitrogen fertilizers are so important to human existence that by the most common estimates, about half of the entire population of Earth — 3.5 billion people — is only sustained thanks to this technology. But because that same chemical reaction was used to create one particular type of chemical weapon that was responsible for a tiny fraction of the deaths in one particular war, Acemoglu and Johnson feel comfortable saying that a technology that literally gives life to half of humanity “brought nothing like shared prosperity”. “
https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/book-review-power-and-progress