[作文互改] ISSUE 59 & ARGUMENT 34

30MIN依然很遥远

59 Scientists and other researchers should focus their research on areas that are likely to benefit the greatest number of people.

Indeed, a primary purpose of researches is to benefit people's lives and promote the development of the society. However, I do not agree with the statement that researchers should just focus on the areas that are likely to benefit the greatest number of people. Three reasons are stated as follows.

To begin with, we would never know the power of a research until the result of it could be utilized by most people. Every research has a lot of complicate processes so that the achievements of them are largely uncertain. Looking back to the history, there were a large number of researches aimed at altering the world but finally failed, while there were also a variety of researches obtained great success in accident. The discovery of penicillin is a great example for the accidentally successful research. At first, Dr. Fleming never expected to operate a research to find the penicillin but merely put the unwashed instruments together. When he came back from a vacation, he discovered the penicillin, which ended an era that infectious disease almost untreatable. Clearly, Dr. Fleming did not pay too much attention to the area that could be beneficial to the greatest number of people, and he even did not realize the meaning of the research originally. It is just the inborn curiosity that impelled him to take a look at the unknown substance. Eventually the accidental discovery turned out to be one of the greatest achievements in the last century.

Even though the achievement of a research is predictable and should be beneficial to most people, it is paradox but also quite possible that the achievement could also threaten people's lives or our living environment. For example, the nuclear power, which is regarded as the savior of energy shortage, could also destroy the world. On the one hand, it is said that whichever way you look at it, nuclear power is the energy of the future. Especially when it comes to generate electricity, there is no other energy could as efficiency and environmental friendly as the nuclear power. On the other hand, we cannot deny that it is also the most dangerous energy if we are unable to utilize it properly, since an accident of the nuclear power station would engender a major catastrophe, let along the governments use it to produce nuclear weapons. Therefore, even though everyone knows the important significance of nuclear power, whether we should develop more research about the energy is still controversial.

In addition, for many scientists and researchers, personal interests might be one essential issue for them to choose their subjects. As it is said that interest is the best teacher. If scientists are compelled to study some useful research but not their interest, it is very likely that the progress of the research will be extremely slow as the result of the reduction of their initiative. Besides, the areas that could benefit most people are definitely the minority, if the researchers all concentrate on theses confined area, the contemporary social problem would be solved soon. But in the long term it will impede the stable development of the society in the future. After all there are a lot of researches that might seem groundless at present but will become helpful in future, such as the alternating current, which was regarded as a useless invention in the past turned out to be an indispensible part of people’s everyday life today.

In conclusion, according to the reasons mentioned above, limiting the range of study within the defined areas is totally inadvisable. Actually it is essential for the scientists and researchers to maintain the diversity of their researches, not only because of the uncertainty of the researches, but also as a respect to the scientists’ personal interests.