[i习作temp] issue31第一篇issue，求砖！！ [复制链接]

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发表于 2004-11-29 18:16:04 |只看该作者 |倒序浏览

Issue 31: "Money spent on research is almost always a good investment, even when the results of that research are controversial."

  Generally speaking, the speaker's broad assertion that money spent on research makes a good investment is justifiable on the basis that research is the only way to solve human's enduring problems. Firstly, we rely on research to explore Deep Ocean, desert, and the firmament for a wider living space. Secondly we research on new medicines and cure treatments for a longer life span. What is more, research brings us new resource of energy such as atomic power and solar energy which greatly relieved the panic of future's shortage in oil and coal.

  Yet the speaker's advanced notion about whether or not to invest in research, whose results are controversial, is somewhat illogically asserted since no one can foresee the results of a research until he or she invested in it. Besides, it makes no sense to research toward something we have already known. In fact, almost all researches will probably end with results controversial in some extents. The invention of automobile not only accelerated our lives and shorted the distances between people, but also polluted the air and noised our surroundings. The discovery of atomic power not only supported us with new energy source but also became human slaughter in the name of atomic weapon and nuclear meltdown. Nevertheless, people still crazy about research. After all, do not invest in research whose results are controversial means do not invest in research at all.

  However, it is slapdash and extreme to reach the conclusion that money spent on research is almost always money well invested. For one thing, as was mentioned before, the results of a research is hard to predict, but its original purpose is easy to see. What if the very purpose of a research is to do harm to or even destroy human and our planet earth? For another, there do exist a large amount of well-intended researches which turned out to be dangerous and harmful to humans after being invested in and carried out. Take the technology of clone as an example. The original intention of cloning is to learn the exact way in which gene functions in order to find a cure for hereditary diseases. However, this research enables human cloning, which challenges humanity and morality. Thus, the research toward human clone is world wide forbidden. In sum, invest in well-intended research is not enough, we have to keep the research always on a right direction by means of law. Thirdly, given a limited amount of economic resources, we are forced to allocate the money among competing objectives. It is unwise and inconsiderable for a government to spend all of the tax money on research, leaving other fundamental while pressing social problems being ignored. The Indian government's investment in research toward nuclear power serves an apt illustration. Regardless of the outside world's criticisms and a large proportion of the country's population still struggling with hunger, the Indian government insisted in spending lots of tax money to support nuclear research, which, at last aggravated the country's poverty. Last but not the least, research is not able to solve the problem such as war, poverty and violence which stems from some bad aspects of human nature although mankind has made extraordinary progress in accumulating knowledge, which applied to practical life as fast as possible by means of research, it has undergone little general improvement in intelligence or morality. After all, it is up to our political leaders, artists, and educators to solve those problems--not our laboratory researchers.

  In the final analysis, money spent on research would make a sound investment when we take the original purpose of the research and the economic condition into consideration and use law to keep it always towards the desired direction.