Task 2
Question
Do you agree or disagree with the following statement?
Scientists are not responsible for the negative impacts of their discoveries.
U specific reasons and examples to support your answer.
As pioneers of modern societies, scientists have been continuously exploring the unknown, unraveling the mysteries, and making countless breakthroughs. During this process, some unexpected troubles, however, are unfortunately inevitable. Although scientists could alert people, they can barely prevent tho negative impacts from arising. Besides, if scientists should be responsible for tho negative impacts, they would be demotivated to innovate. Therefore, I totally hold the positive view towards the statement that we should not blame scientists for the undesirable results of scientific findings.
To start with, scientists should not be scapegoats. In other words ,it is the urs, like politicians or businessmen, that should shoulder responsibility of the negative impacts of scientific findings. Just like a knife could be ud to cut bread as well as to murder someone, a scientific discovery can be ud to benefit or hurt people. Take scientific findings in physics, namely weapons, as an instance. Although it could be ud to fight with criminals, it may also be abud by criminals to kill innocent civilians, which is certainly contrary to scientists’ intention. In this ca, the negative impact of such findings is not up to its finders, scientists, but to the urs.
Furthermore, if the scientists were asked to be accountable for all the possible negative outcomes of their discoveries, it would undoubtedly hinder the progress of science. To be specific, the advent of any scientific findings cannot be divorced from bold attempts. If scientists are required to be responsible for negative impacts of their progressions, they may become overcautious or even scared to make progress. On the contrary, scientists who are exempted from taking responsibility for the unexpected negative effect tend to be more motivated in discovering. Therefore, for the advent of new technologies,
scientists should not be responsible for the negative impact.
In addition, the intentions of making discoveries for scientists are for a better life of humans. One man’s bread is another man’s poison. If the discovery were to make life better, how could people blame its finders just becau of its abu, which contradicts to scientists intentions.
Admittedly, scientists should be aware of the potential hazards behind findings. Thus, they are responsible for informing the urs of tho harms . However, negligence are not totally avoidable yet completely understandable. Not to mention, even if the urs are crystal clear about tho potential negative impacts, they may still make mistakes triggering tho potential impacts, either becau they are careless or too profit-driven. With the aforementioned points clarified, how can we place blame on scientists?
To put it in a nutshell, scientists should not take the blame for making discoveries’ negative impact if the world is still looking forward to new discoveries.
