I think there is a perfect example that will help me guide
through the 2 questions written below.
1.
To what extent should scientific knowledge open
to the public
2.
To what extent does science owe responsibility
to the society that finances it
I am more than assured than everyone has heard about nuclear
energy and its growing popularity as an alternative source of energy of finite
energy sources such as oil over the globe. However, there are some downsides to
nuclear energy. Despite the high productivity and environmental-freeness, there
is no doubt that this source is by far the most dangerous and unpredictable among
other sources. This leads us to the first question: To what extent should
scientific knowledge be open to the public. I personally think that, in the
case of nuclear energy, scientific knowledge should not be open to the public
for many reasons. But the main reason is that, people might use the knowledge
for their own benefits. In extreme cases, they might build their own nuclear
power plants. However, I believe that there is an exception in this; Scientific
knowledge that are minor and useful in the people’s daily lives should be open.
Next, the second questions states to what extent does science owe
responsibility to the society that finances it. To take a firm stand, I strongly
believe that science owe utter responsibility to the society. In the case of
nuclear energy, it is apparent that the citizens of a country must pay more tax
in order to raise finance to build the nuclear power plants, and the costs of
building a nuclear power plant costs $4 billion on average. Even after the
power plants are built, the citizens are not guaranteed safety. As I have mentioned
before, nuclear power plants are unpredictable and disastrous, and if it once
explodes, a whole city, or perhaps a country can vanish. For example, the
Chernobyl incident, which happened on 2 April 1986, was a catastrophic and
shocking accident that started as one of the power plants exploded. The poor
residences, who had to pay immense amount of money, died due to extremely high
radiation. Like this, because science doesn’t result in positive outcomes, the
society should always prioritize the people as they are the ones financing and
undergoing the leap.
