issue 69

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Government should place few, if any, restrictions on scientific research and development.


The speaker asserts that government should place few, if any, restriction on scientific research and development. As far as I am concerned, I don’t agree with this statement, in my view, under the circumstance that no one including the government knows what side-effect influence that a new research will bring about, government should put some restrictions on scientific research and development.

It is true that there are many scientific research and development that has been proved to be great and if we look back at them, we would say it was a right decision that government didn’t put restriction on these researches and development. For example, in last century, scientists made a big improvement on the exploration of the universe, they invented the machine called the boat of Mar, whose assignment is to take photographs of Mar and sent them back to the earth. Also, the invention of Harbor telescope makes it possible for human being to see the beautiful phenomenon and know more about the universe. Like the inventions above, government should not place restriction on them, otherwise, government will hinder the development of society. However, like what I said, in some cases, government has no idea and can’t make sure whether new research would bring about negative effects.

History has told us that we should never overlook the negative effects some research potentially have. Last century, scientists devote themselves to the research of atom weapon which they said was the most powerful weapon to defense the country and could produce as millions of times of electricity as the same amount of mine. And finally, it did have such function, however, scientists fly in the face of thousands of innocent people died in the atom battle. Human cloning is another example, although clone was supposed to be effective to cure some diseases, in about 1943, when a Scottish company alleged they succeed in cloning sheep and was ready to make a large amount of profits, when the government stopped it, because they worried about that a few years later, they may discover the way how to clone human being, at that time, the moral and ethic rules that have existed for thousands of years would be collapsed in one second. Above all, for some research like above, if government don’t put restrictions on them, it is more likely to lead to a huge disaster.

All in all, some research and development are unnecessary to be placed restrictions on, but some that have potential negative effects to the society should. Under the circumstances that if government doesn’t know which one has potential negative effects, they should place restrictions on research and development.