issue69 【FF小组】by duyuan3377 第二次限时模考

duyuan3377UID: 2415765

TOPIC: ISSUE69 - "Government should place few, if any, restrictions on scientific research and development"
WORDS: 506          TIME: 00:45:00          DATE: 2008-12-7 16:38:55

The author asserts that government should place as few restrictions as possible on scientific research and development. However, in my opinion it depends on the different categories of scientific researches. There are mainly two kinds of researches. One is to serve to improve our daily life which is closely related to every member in our society. And the other is aiming at exploring the unknown fields and discovering the new theory and principle.

As to the former kind of research, government is responsible to place some restrictions to regulate its process and guide its direction. As we are known, this kind of research influences us so largely that every tiny mistake might cause catastrophic results. For example, researches about cloning are controversial nowadays. They bring about the enormous impact on our ethical and moral standards. Providing that if the criminals control cloning technology, what will happen? They would do wrong and disobey the law, but another cloning of themselves would go to prison for them. It is like a nightmare for the order of society.  It is true that the technology is a two-edge sword which has the power of both benefiting and destroying. In this situation, only the government can control this two-edge sword and restrict the negative edge of the sword, which is also the most essential function of our government.

On the other hand, for the latter kind of research, government is required to give the scientists and researchers the maximum rights to do the research instead of placing restrictions. As far as I am concerned, discovering and exploring the unknown fields needs ideal freedom to ignite the power of imagination and innovation. For this kind of research, restrictions, even really few, might undermine it. After all, the government standing for sort of political group is inevitable to influence on the research on political purpose. As a result, the government should allow scientists and researchers enough freedom to develop their ideas and experiments.  

In addition, regardless of the two kinds of researches, government should play a supervisor to guarantee the interests of most people in society. According to the vital function of the government, the government should prevent the negative effects of all kinds of research from doing harm to people. The Genetic Engineering is a good case. At the beginning of the project, the government provided a huge mount of money and resources to support it because it is on the stage of discovering. In turn, in these years, the Genetic Engineering has brought about some technique related to our daily life, such as modified-gene food, the government uses its power to control and regulate.

In summary, these two kinds of researches play different roles in the development of our society. From the point of view of the public interests, the public official should be bound to ensure that all researches and developments are not harmful to the public and the effects of these researches and development are beneficial to the most part of society. This is the most important responsibility of the government.