Science Never Provides More Solutions, It Only Poses More Questions

1. Science never provides more solutions, it only poses more questions Mankind has always been a curious creature; religion gave him an answer to birth, death and the life after death, philosophy answered his questions on the purpose and values in life but science has been an important tool, which provided him answers to all the basic questions he was looking for, like why an apple would fall from its tree. The question asserts that science has never brought any solutions for mankind, and that scientific discoveries have merely created more problems for us in our endeavours to find the truth. While one can argue that science does provide solutions, one can’t deny that it also poses more questions; for example, vaccinations have helped eradicate diseases that have plagued man for ages, while the same scientific knowledge in the wrong hands can lead to the outbreak of biological warfare. This essay would focus on how science has brought progress for mankind; although science may pose questions for mankind, it is ultimately the source for the answers to these questions too. One of the greatest innovations in science has been in the field of medicine. Scientific discoveries such vaccinations for small pox and polio have helped to cure diseases that have plagued us for generations and hence have undoubtedly helped to make the quality of life better. However the solutions brought on by medical discoveries are outweighed by ethical concerns; sometimes, scientific discoveries are made when scientists evade ethical guidelines for their personal glory. In the past a lot of cures for diseases were made through self-experimentation and experimentation on unknowing subjects; for example, both the polio and the small pox vaccines were perfected through self-experimentation first on the scientists and their assistants and then experimentation on children. While these discoveries undeniably were a solution for diseases that would otherwise have claimed much more lives, the disregard for ethics poses the question whether contemporary scientists would follow Jenner and Sabin in put their lives and the lives of their subjects on the line for the personal glory gained from their discoveries. The solution to this lies in the Declaration of Geneva, a modern-day adaptation of the Hippocratic oath, which most doctors observe today. The Declaration stipulates that a doctor puts his patient’s health as his utmost consideration and that he would practice medicine with conscience. Hence medicine is not just one of the greatest scientific innovations of mankind but the social responsibility of doctors ensures that people are not abused in the pursuit of science. Sometimes there is nothing inherently wrong with the discovery itself, however inaccurate depictions of scientific discoveries by journalists with little scientific knowledge may lead to people questioning the value of scientific discoveries. A key goal of media companies would be to gain more audience; hence an impartial and subjective media may stress the problems of scientific discoveries without highlighting the benefits. Case in point was Andrew Wakefield’s publication on the MMR vaccine and a correlation with autism; such side effects of the vaccine were not only not replicated in other experiments, but also later proved to be false, simply published so as to gain a larger audience for the publisher. Media as a medium for disseminating scientific discoveries may cause people to question the costs of scientific discoveries as the solutions brought on by scientific discoveries may not be fully represented in the media.

2. Science is getting more important in our daily lives as we progress into the technological era. Scientific inputs in agriculture and technology helped the previously nomadic man to settle down and develop their civilisations. With agriculture, man didn’t have to spend so much time hunting and gathering their food, while technology enabled man to build cities and the infrastructure, from the most basic necessity of sewers to building power and utility grids that help sustain our day-to-day lives. As we progress further into the technological era, we are becoming more dependent on technology to do our daily tasks; almost anyone in a developed country would spend at least an hour a day using a computer or a personal communication device. Technology has definitely made our lives easier, but the ease that technology has brought to our lives also poses the question, whether we have become slaves to technology. Innovations in technology were a solution to increase our productivity but mankind has started to become overly dependent on computers, sometimes sacrificing personal interaction, because work can be done alone with a computer without much help needed from other people. However, if we are slaves to technology, it is because we ourselves have placed the shackles of slavery on our own wrists. The manifestation of technology as our enslaver is only an illusion that we have made up. In the end, we are the masters of technology, and as such, if we are too dependent on technology we are consequently our own enslavers. Sometimes science is used to gain political leverage over a country with the promise of economic gains for that country. Scientific breakthroughs that happened during the 20th century were funded by a western push. For example, nuclear fission as a source of energy and as a weapon was discovered in the 1940s and 1950s by both America and the Soviet Union. As part of the Atoms for Peace program, nuclear power plants were built in Iran to ease the burden on fossil fuels to provide energy. The US attempt to gain political leverage in Iran failed however when the US-allied Shah was overthrown. The solution of using nuclear fission for energy turned into a question whether Iran would use enriched uranium for weapons instead. As we move into a more globalised world, science would unquestionably be used to gain political allegiances of less developed countries. Yet the solutions given by science could pose problems if, like the case of Iran, this scientific knowledge falls into the wrong hands. Sometimes scientific discoveries may tell us the truth about something but not provide any meaningful solution for us. Science research institutions help to foster scientific research by providing a conducive environment. These institutions provide scholarships to promote discoveries, which could be helpful for mankind in the future, yet they also pose questions for the layman, what if the discovery is not beneficial for mankind. Case in point, the Large Hadron Collider in CERN, while the experiments in the LHC are meant to benefit the field of particle physics, they could also produce black holes that are potentially dangerous for earth. The research done may not provide any solutions for us in the field of particle physics and may simply just pose more questions in our search for the truth. Gustave Le Bon once said, “Science has promised us truth. It has never promised us either peace or happiness.” Science as a means of acquiring knowledge is pure, but the desires of mankind, be it personal glory, political leverage or commercial gains through media have corrupted science merely as a tool of finding solutions without thinking of any possible consequences. One would have to agree with Le Bon in saving that science does not promise peace or happiness, yet the discoveries made by science can indeed help make our lives better. Many scientific discoveries are irreversible; once they have been made, there is no going back. Therefore, we have to learn from our past mistakes of not thinking about the questions posed by science, so that we would know where our new discoveries would take us and we would be more prepared for the outcomes of these discoveries.