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[B]"Scholars and researchers should not be concerned with whether their work makes a contribution to the larger society. It is more important that they pursue their individual interests, however unusual or idiosyncratic those interests may seem. "[/B]
We are living in an ear of knowledge explosion. Everyday there are some scientific discoveries and technological innovation taking place all round us. They are bringing great changes to the way how people are living, thanks to the disinterested effort of those scholars and researchers. However, there is a debate that whether these scholars and researchers should focus their attention on subjects they are interested in, or those can make contribution to the larger society. The answer of which, in my opinion, is the latter one.
There is no doubt that it is more likely for people to make great achievement when it comes to the subjects they are interested in. Famous scientist, the late Einstein once said that interest is the best teacher. When pursuing their individual interests, scholars and researchers are likely to have great enthusiasm in these subjects, they won't easily lose heart when there are obstacles ahead, and they are more willing to overcome whatever lying in the way through which they achieve their goals. As a result, if possible, scholars and researchers would rather start on these subjects and in fact, many of them are doing so. In addition, as to the integrity of the science, little restriction should be put on which topics should those researchers to choose.
However, this does not mean that when encountering those extremely unusual or idiosyncratic personal interests, they can still remain the position. Some ideas, such as cloning a whole person, while do become the priority of some researchers, they are "important" in the sense that if such experiment succeed, there may be ethical crisis among the human race. Therefore, for those scholars or researchers, it is not the question that whether they are pursuing something they are interested in matters most, which is important is that whether they are contributing to the larger society as they claim, or actually, doing harm to the entire human society. Indeed, the ultimate goal of science and technology is to do good to the human race, and therefore, scholars or researchers should be concerned with whether their work makes a contribution to the larger society.
Fortunately enough, most of the scholars or researchers are trying their best to do so and even have already been determined to devote their whole life into the field they are doing research on. In the medieval time, Copernicus did countless times of observations, studied carefully previous theories about the view of the universe and their possible flaws, aiming to make people from the Pope to the mean citizens to know that what was the right view of the universe. And he indeed succeeded. The solar-centered model of universe, had opened the door to a new ear of human exploration of the universe, regardless of some minor flaws. As time goes, scientists are continually setting this kind of examples. The famous polish chemist, Mary Courier, while the living and experimental condition for her research was very bad, she even could not have a standard lab and had to do her experiment in a shed, she walked even harder on her way to find the radioactive substance, Ra. Since at that time radioactivity had already been proved to be useful in many areas, from archeological dating to the radioactive therapy to some cancers, she knew that her work, if succeed, will contribute to the larger society a lot. While it's the goal for science to bring good to the whole society, concerning with this issue is more a scientific spirit shared by most of the scholars or researchers.
In addition, if personal interesting and the awareness of making a contribution to the larger society can be combined well into one force, such kind of researches may result in much greater contributions. While Einstein realized his unique interests in the field of physics, after serious meditating and calculation, he introduced the world the theory of relativity, a big jump from the classic Newton physics, and open to a new ear of how to interpret the relationship between time and space and the like.
Science and technology will no doubt develop even at a increasing faster speed, for without the fruit of which, the human race cannot even simply sustain the lives they are living now. And the main force of this, scholars and researchers, should always bear in mind that their work should aim at making contribution to the whole human society, the essential spirit of science that has evolved from its ever birth through the effort of thousands of past scholars and researchers. |
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