In basic research, some people preach the gospel of serendipity. Breakthroughs cannot be planned, insights not be forced, geniuses not be bred. They tell themselves – and everybody willing to listen- that half of all discoveries are made while tinkering with something else. Indeed, but not always.
The quest for scientific knowledge should be boundless. There should not be any type of barriers to prevent such an enrichment of knowledge, and that is exactly what science presents to us. Scientific knowledge can only help us in the long run and even perhaps save us from catastrophes that may occur naturally in the world. There could be an agreement that science has produced many dangerous and destructive things which have brought society many problems, but on the same token the good things that science has produced seems to outweigh the bad.
The importance of science in the modern world can scarcely be overestimated. Nevertheless, only few people stop to think how much this world depends on science and to what extent it now consists of the things that appeared due to science employment. So, how often do we daily run into various products of science? What impact does science have on every person that lives on the Earth? Could we survive without science? First, let us define what the term science means. According to Oxford Dictionary, the definition of science is the intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment. In other words, science deals with everything that is around us and even inside us. Every single object manufactured by a man begins with science, because prior to being done it has to be thoroughly and completely studied. Science is primarily aimed at discovering, explaining, describing and predicting the surrounding world (Brown, 2011), but its outcome often improves the qualities of life for the whole mankind.
About 200 years ago, the pace of technological change in the society began to quicken. Wind, water, and animal power, with their limitation of place and capacity, were supplemented and then replaced by the steam engine, which went on to power the factories of the industrial revolution. The notion of progress was closely linked with technological development, and that linkage intensified in the following decades.
Today, the system by which research and development leads to new products is fundamentally different than it was before. To the role of individual inventor has been added by the power of organized scientific research and technological innovation. Organized research and development, which are increasingly international in character, have greatly increased the production of knowledge.
However, inventions of science may create unemployment. The invention of a mechanical labour-saving device may throw hundreds of workers out of employment. In the nineteenth century, it led to riots, which were cruelly suppressed. Rationalization leads to strikes and lockouts. Again, instead of saving life, science often deals out instruments of death. Politicians spend millions for the invention and perfection of nuclear weapons for mass destruction.
It is also significant that the benefit of science today is confined to a small section of the people. The greatest scientific activity prevails in the countries, which have developed heavy industries most. Science in the modern world is a virtual monopoly of the industrial sector of the world. The scientist today, as indeed in all times, is the servant of the forces of production. Science for the sake of knowledge alone is already an outmoded practice.
In lieu to this, the emancipation of science will come only with the establishment of socialist society in a popular government. The social utility of the science will then be properly appreciated. The factory, the agricultural farm, the University laboratory,—all these institutions will then value the work of the scientist as contributing in different ways to the total welfare of the people in the long run. Nations will learn to cooperate with each other, not for national aggrandizements, but for the good of mankind as a whole. The productive zones of the world as also the sea will then be fully utilized.
Because of science some new inventions and discoveries were made from destructions with the governing principles being applied. With the scientific uproar, mankind should also not just take advantage of the luxuries that science has given us, but to be a responsible citizens as well in manipulating these creative imaginations.
References:
Physics Today 65, 9, 53 (2012); doi: 10.1063/PT.3.1721
Brown N., The New Era of Networked Science, 2011.