Issue69 有话可说的题目，请指教！

lxmsosUID: 2133854

TOPIC: ISSUE69 - "Government should place few, if any, restrictions on scientific research and development"
WORDS: 515        TIME: 12:57:53 AM          DATE: 26/08/2006

     Quite a few people believe that Government should put some restrictions on scientific research, and some of them even support that government should lead the direction of the scientific research. However, I strongly agree that "Government should place few, if any, restrictions on scientific research and development." The reasons are as follows:
    First of all, we should understand what the scientific research and development mean to humans. They are not only an effective tool to develop our civilization or improve the living conditions, but also a reliable friend to establish human spirit and to satisfy the curiosity and intelligent need of humans. What distinguishes humans from other animals? The curiosity and the intelligence we have. The results of scientific research enable us to understand the world better and what is more exciting, they broaden the horizon of us. For instance, after Wegener developed the theory of "continental drift", people begin to realize that the earth is actually dynamic instead of what some ancient legends said---the earth is held by monsters or giants.
    In addition, the variable brunches of science are closely connected. The break thought in one brunch can lead to the progress of others since scientists in different subjects can always get ideas from others. If the government restricts a certain brunch of scientific research which they think is dangerous or useless to the nowadays society, others brunches cannot get any idea from it. As a result, some great developments may be delayed for years. Take the Darwin’s Natural selection theory for example, his natural selection idea originally came from a book named “An Essay on the principle of Population” written by Malthus. If government restricted the research of Malthus since it is hard to see how important the theory in sociology is, the famous and profound “The origin of Species” cannot come out. The connection between different subjects of science requires few or if possible, no limitation in scientific research.
    Finally, people who hold the idea that government should place some restrictions on scientific research may consider some controversial issues such as the research of human cloning, biochemical weapon and so on. However, we should know that they are not scientific research at all; instead, they are the scientific applications on which the restrictions should be placed. For instance, if geophysicists do research in the seismic theory and principles, they are doing scientific research; if they do research in how to use seismic theory to detect the potential earthquakes, they then put the result of scientific research into practice, during which they also need to do some research, but they are not scientific research any more. So, what government should place restrictions on is not pure scientific research but the scientific applications and their corresponding research.
    All in all, government should understand the importance of scientific research well and the connection between different scientific brunches. Also they need distinguish the scientific research from their application so that they can make a right decision when dealing with them. Again, they should place as few restrictions as possible on pure scientific research.

[ 本帖最后由 lxmsos 于 2006-8-27 20:58 编辑 ]