Issue69 永不言弃第十八次作业 by stgzhao

stgzhaoUID: 2583165

TOPIC: ISSUE69 - "Government should place few, if any, restrictions on scientific research and development"
WORDS: 523          TIME: 00:37:42          DATE: 2009-2-24 15:53:16

Whether the cloning of human beings should be forbidden by the government is one of the biggest topic in scientific world recently, which puts forward a controversy that if it is true that government should place few, if any, restrictions on scientific research and development. Restriction is a necessity of scientific research in order to keep it within the range of ethics and morality. Meanwhile, it is also important for scientists to have freedom in their researches to keep scientific development comprehensively.
Nowadays both scientific research and development and the entire human society are moving forward at a unprecedented rate. Scientific research is developing toward, as we can see some inklings, complicated directions and interdisciplinary. One of the most important reasons for this is that today's scientists suffers little restrictions from the government and little threaten by sustenance, which is to say they get more freedom and hence they are able to devote all themselves into their research.
Freedom in scientific research and development specifically means few restrictions from the government and more funds and support to every field of science. Without such conditions science can hardly move forward. Taking a good look at Copernicus' death, a striking example that the church, though not the government put tremendous restrictions and inflictions on scientist who believed the heliocentric theory, which certainly greatly restrain the development of science. In addition, more restrictions to scientific research will also decline the diversity of science. Chemistry, economy, art are all science of different field, if we focus too much on disciplines which can benefit obviously to the development of economy and society and ignore the disciplines which have long-term profits, the result will be tragic.
However, the government restriction is somehow necessary for the healthy development of science. Some kinds of research, such as cloning of human beings as I talked at the beginning of this issue, must be normalized within the ethical and moral standards in order to stabilize our society. Besides, certain restriction to scientific research can bring us extraordinary profits under particular circumstance. A striking example is the well-known Manhattan Project - a example of government centralizing all its power to develop certain field of science in order to stop the war. Another example is also one of the most important three project in twenties century - the Human Genome Project, where scientist from all over the world participate in the research of human genome. Such kinds of restrictions on scientific research well certainly benefit human beings from one generation to the next.
Finally, it is a indubitable fact that the contradiction between freedom and discipline occurs in every field of our society - of course in scientific research and development as well. The most important for us to do is to find the best-designed balance to it and carry out what we have designed. The harmony of freedom and discipline is a great impetus for the improvement of our society.
In sum, I strongly agree with the point that government should place few restrictions on scientific research and development however, certain restrictions are also necessary in order to keep science within human's control.