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---by EC
Issue 119
“When research priorities are being set for science, education, or any other area, the most important question to consider is: How many people’s lives will be improved if the results are successful?”
提纲：
总观点：This is one of the important questions, but not the most.
1) 开头
2) 承认importance 用nuclear的武器/能源应用阐明研究还是应该注重人们生活的提高
3) 小过渡转折段
4) how many太难获得 如仅仅以此作为是否research的依据可能会耽误一些重要的research
5) 还有其他criteria 如how much one research changes life
6) 结尾
Researchers and research funding institutions always face the question about how the research priorities should be set. The arguer claims that the most important question to consider is how many people’s lives will be improved if the results are successful. In my opinion, this is definitely one important question, but should not be considered as the most important one.
Admittedly, in a society where money is important for any kind of researches, it is wise to allocate the limited funding to the projects that can improve the most people’s lives. The further research of the use of nuclear, for instance, should not be conducted according to how much money the research can bring this society, but how people’s lives will be improved. It is known to all that nuclear is something that can either be used as weapons to destroy the world or be used as new energy to benefit all human beings on this earth. Some politicians claimed that their countries have to own certain amount of nuclear weapons so that they can fight back when being attacked. This is not a cogent logic because this seeming necessity is possible to be extinct if none of the countries in the world possess nuclear weapons as they were decades ago. If the money that is currently used in doing research about how to make more powerful weapons can be used in how nuclear can be efficiently used in being an energy resource, everyone can benefit from it because we will have more energy to use and less nuclear wars to worry about.
However, I oppose the idea of overstating the importance of “how many people’s lives will be improved” for several reasons.
Firstly, the simplest reason is that it is hard to estimate the amount of people whose lives will be improved. If we use this as the most important reason to do researches, what should we do if there is no statistics available for us to make answer this question? In some science areas, it is still likely to predict how many people will benefit from certain researches. Before conducting a research about a certain drug that cures some disease, for instance, it is very possible that the researchers understand how many patients are now suffering from this disease. In fact, this is one important reason why they want to create the drug. In many other areas, however, it is almost impossible for experts to know the numbers. Will people’s lives be improved if we find out that composite A and B can react together? Not really. But these kinds of researches should still be funded and conducted because the new composite from this A and B reaction might eventually lead to the invention of that drug which can help people to fight against virus. If we based simply on the number of people whose lives will be directly improved from the successful results, the basic scientific researches can never be done and the new drug will never be invented.
Moreover, there are still lots of important questions that should be taken into account by researchers. For example, how much people can benefit from the success of the research that is about to be conducted? In my opinion, a drug that it is good for many people should not be assigned a higher priority than another one which can cure people who are suffering from a currently incurable certain disease. It is not just the number of people, but the real importance of the research that determines the priorities.
To sum up, although the amount of people who can benefit from certain research should be considered as one key criterion when making the priority list, it is sometimes not easy to obtain those data. Also, researchers and funding institutions should realize that there are many more factors to consider when making the priority list.
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Argument65.The following appeared in a memo from the president of a chain of cheese stores located throughout the United States.
"For many years all the stores in our chain have stocked a wide variety of both domestic and imported cheeses. Last year, however, the five best-selling cheeses at our newest store were all domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin. Furthermore, a recent survey by Cheeses of the World magazine indicates an increasing preference for domestic cheeses among its subscribers. Since our company can reduce expenses by limiting inventory, the best way to improve profits in all of our stores is to discontinue stocking many of our varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses."
提纲：
1) 开头段
2) 这店的上年销售业绩不足以证明全国的连锁都应该照猫画虎
3) CW杂志survey不能够被用作依据 因为subscriber群体不等于consumer群体
4) 减少进口增加国产 不一定能够减少expense 因为估计还是得存那么多东西 因而profit也就不一定上升了
5) 结尾总结
This memo suggested that in order to improve profits in all of the stores in the chain, the best way is to stop stocking many of the imported cheese and concentrate on domestic cheeses. However, the reasons that were given are not enough to support this conclusion.
First of all, the fact that the best-selling cheeses last year in the newest store were all domestic cheddar cheeses from Wisconsin cannot be used as a general evidence to support the idea that domestic cheeses should be primarily stocked in all the stores in the chain. As a newly opened store, this store is still facing many unstable factors that can affect its sales. Its last year’s sales cannot even be used as a very proper estimation of its sales in the future, not to mention that of all the stores in the country. In addition, the reason why the domestic cheeses sold well in that store was still unclear. The neighborhood in which the store locates might be one that the consumers enjoy cheese produced in Wisconsin. It would be unwise if the president based his or her decision of structural change on this single store.
Secondly, the use of the survey conducted by Cheeses of the World magazine is not very useful in proving that domestic cheeses are welcomed by consumers through out the United States. The participants of this survey were subscribers of Cheeses of the World. However, as there is no evidence to show that this subscribers body was the same as the consumers body, this survey does not make much sense in proving that domestic cheeses are more attractive to real consumers.
Moreover, it is plausible if, by reducing imported cheeses, the stores can reduce expenses and improve profits. In order to maintain the amount of inventory, one store needs no less space to stock the domestic cheeses and no less money to prevent them from going rotten. The expenses will not be reduced if the chain stores decide to change its inventory structure. Moreover, there is no enough evidence to say that the profits will be improved. The revenue of selling the same amount of domestic cheeses is not necessarily higher than imported ones. And as it is not sure if the expenses will decrease, the profits are not promised to go up. In a word, the best way to improve profit might not be by discontinuing stocking many of the varieties of imported cheese and concentrate primarily on domestic cheeses.
To sum up, the previous year’s sales of the newest store and the recent survey by Cheeses of the World magazine are not enough to support the proposal of stocking more domestic cheeses. Even if it does help to increase sales, changing inventories is not necessarily the best way to improve profits.
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发表于 2009-7-1 21:00:12
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