Essays Online

Essay on uses and abuses of science.

Abuse of Science 

Table of Contents

Abuses of science

Science has been a tremendous blessing to humanity. At the same time, it is a huge curse. It may be both harmful and beneficial. It has placed state-of-the-art weaponry and missile systems in the hands of humans, allowing them to wreak mass death and devastation in a distant location with the push of a button. Science has created the h – bomb, atomic weapons, fighter planes, nuclear submarines, missiles, laser bombs, etc. These types of warheads are highly lethal. They can extinguish humanity’s existence on this planet.

What are the abuses of science?

Furthermore, scientific discoveries and technological breakthroughs have resulted in the release of significant pollution—air, noise, and water. Pollution is a danger to humanity. Climate change is a considerable threat to society. All of this is credited to science. 

We rely on machines for the majority of our tasks. Machines have reduced the amount of work we have to do. A single device may even serve thousands of people. It has contributed to joblessness, a significant issue in today’s society. It’s growing at a breakneck pace. The introduction of technology and the online world has reduced the amount of time and space available.

It has shrunk the planet, but it has also increased income inequality. The Internet has led to the downfall of human creativity. Humans rely on computers for all of their tasks. Even for little computations or information, he wants the assistance of a computer. We have forgotten that physical labour may keep us fit and healthy. We dislike walking short distances on foot. Even for short distances, we rely on autos. As a result, exercise has been diminished to a bare minimum, contributing to the growth of lifestyle disorders such as diabetes, heart disease, obesity, stress, depression, etc. These illnesses are quickly becoming major health issues in modern culture.

What are the uses and misuses ?

Pollution is a significant issue in modern life. It is supposed to have begun with industrialisation. Our industries produce a large volume of hazardous gases. These gases pollute our atmosphere. The air we breathe is contaminated. A large number of automobiles contributes to the significant problem of pollution. Industries’ solid wastes are dumped into rivers and other bodies of water, polluting them. Water pollution is an issue for both aquatic life and humans. Water contamination is to blame for the rapid loss of freshwater ecosystems.

Science has created terrifying weapons. The weapons are extremely lethal. They have altered the character of warfare. They have increased the danger and devastation of conflict. Chemical warfare, bacteriological warfare, and atomic weapons have also been developed by science. If such weapons are used, they will signal calamity for humanity. 

How is science misused in society?

Nuclear power facilities represent a significant threat to the environment. The accident from the Chornobyl nuclear power plant in Russia released dangerous radiation within the country and into neighbouring countries. Countless humans and animals died as a result of it. Thousands of people were killed in the Bhopal gas disaster in 1984. Many individuals were rendered incapacitated as a result of a hazardous gas leak in a plant.

Thus, science, which was highly beneficial in the early days of scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, proved to be equally terrible for humankind. It looks like the time is not that far off when all of humanity will have to suffer significantly due to the horrors of science. The current requirement is for man to be highly sensitive in using scientific breakthroughs and technological developments. The secret to protection and well-being is in humankind’s own hands now. 

Related Blogs:

Who was Abdul Sattar Edhi- Essay

What is BS System – Essay

What is the purpose of Black lives matter?

Hamza Arshad

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

The Use and Abuse of Science

  • First Online: 21 March 2020

Cite this chapter

Book cover

  • Paul Needham 7  

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 423))

264 Accesses

Moral issues concerning the use and abuse of science are broached in this chapter. Scientists have responsibilities to conduct their research in such a way as to respect and acknowledge the contributions of others and to present their work honestly and without seeking to avoid criticism by misleadingly overestimating random error. The onus on scientists of a wider social responsibility for informing the public and guiding decision makers is also discussed, together with the reciprocal responsibilities of decision makers to ensure that they are informed and able to understand the bearing of new knowledge.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
  • Durable hardcover edition

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

But a more general claim by Koyré that it would not have been possible to carry out any of the experiments and observations Galileo reported goes too far. Settle ( 1961 ) repeated an experiment on inclined planes in accordance with Galileo’s description, which Koyré had described as completely worthless, and found the ingenious device for measuring time gave quite precise results—certainly precise enough to attain the relations of proportion between distance and times that Galileo claimed. Koyré maintained further that Galileo’s procedure couldn’t possibly furnish a reasonable value of the constant of proportionality appearing in the algebraic expression of this relation of proportion. But as Settle points out, this modern way of expressing the law of free fall by writing distance as a function of time was not the way Galileo expressed the relation, which was weaker and didn’t entail all that the modern functional expression does.

Note that in modern usage introduced towards the end of Sect. 2.2 , we should say “precision” rather than “accuracy”.

Arp, H. C., Furböridge, G., Hoyle, F., Narlikar, J. V., & Wickramasinghe, N. C. (1990). The extragalactic universe: An alternative view. Nature, 346 , 807–812.

Article   Google Scholar  

Babbage, C. (1830). Reflections on the decline of science in England . London: B. Fellows; Reprinted Gregg International, Farnborough, 1969.

Google Scholar  

Benveniste, J. (1988). Dr. Jacques Benveniste replies. Nature, 334 , 291.

Brush, S. G. (1989). Prediction and theory evaluation: The case of light bending. Science, 246 , 1124–1129.

Collins, H., & Pinch, T. (1998). The Golem: What you should know about science (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Davenas, E., et al. (1988). Human basophil degranulation triggered by very dilute antiserum against IgE. Nature, 333 , 816–818. See also editorial comment, p. 787 and subsequent discussion, 334, 285–291.

Earman, J., & Glymour, C. (1980). Relativity and eclipses: The British eclipse expeditions of 1919 and their predecesssors. Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences, 11 , 49–85.

Franklin. A. (1986). The neglect of experiment . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Book   Google Scholar  

Galileo, G. (1638 [1954]). Dialogue concerning two new sciences (trans: Crew, H., de Savio, A.). New York: Dover.

Kitcher, P. (2001). Science, truth and democracy . New York: Oxford University Press.

Klotz, I. M. (1980). The N-ray affair. Scientific American, 242 , 122–131.

Lang, S. (1998). Challenges . New York: Springer.

Maddox, J., Randi, J., & Stewart, W. W. (1988). ‘High-dilution’ experiments a delusion. Nature, 334 , 287–290.

Metzger, H., & Dreskin, S. (1988). Only the smile is left. Nature, 334 , 375. See also editorial comment, p. 367.

Naylor, R. (1974). Galileo’s simple pendulum. Physis, 16 (1974), 32–46.

Newman, W. R. (1996). The alchemical sources of Robert Boyle’s corpuscular philosophy. Annals of Science, 53 , 567–585.

Settle, T. B. (1961). An experiment in the history of science. Science, 133 , 19–23.

Westfall, R. S. (1980). Never at rest: A biography of Isaac Newton . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

White, H. O. (1938). Plagiarism and imitation during the English renaissance . Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

Download references

Author information

Authors and affiliations.

Department of Philosophy, University of Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden

Paul Needham

You can also search for this author in PubMed   Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2020 Springer Nature Switzerland AG

About this chapter

Needham, P. (2020). The Use and Abuse of Science. In: Getting to Know the World Scientifically. Synthese Library, vol 423. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40216-7_4

Download citation

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40216-7_4

Published : 21 March 2020

Publisher Name : Springer, Cham

Print ISBN : 978-3-030-40215-0

Online ISBN : 978-3-030-40216-7

eBook Packages : Religion and Philosophy Philosophy and Religion (R0)

Share this chapter

Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content:

Sorry, a shareable link is not currently available for this article.

Provided by the Springer Nature SharedIt content-sharing initiative

  • Publish with us

Policies and ethics

  • Find a journal
  • Track your research
  • Privacy Policy

Zahid Notes

benefits of science essay with quotations

Benefits of science essay , uses and abuses of science.

Science is the systematic classification of experience.
Science is nothing but an image of truth
All war is the symptom of man's failure as a think animal
The future belongs to science and those who make friends with science

No comments:

Post a Comment

Trending Topics

Latest posts.

  • 2nd year English guess paper 2024 for Punjab Boards
  • 2nd Year English Complete Notes in PDF
  • 2nd Year Part II Book II Questions Notes free PDF Download
  • 2nd year guess paper 2024 Punjab board
  • 2nd year English Objective MCQs with Answers
  • 2nd year chemistry guess paper 2024 Punjab board
  • Important English Essays for 2nd Year 2023
  • Goodbye Mr. Chips important question answers notes
  • 2nd year English solved past papers A+ up to date solved
  • 2nd year all subjects notes PDF Download
  • 9th class guess paper 2024 pdf
  • 9th class Islamiat Lazmi guess paper pdf 2024
  • 9th class physics guess paper 2024 pdf download
  • 9th class Urdu guess paper 2024 pdf download
  • BISE Hyderabad
  • BISE Lahore
  • bise rawalpindi
  • BISE Sargodha
  • career-counseling
  • how to pass
  • Punjab Board
  • Sindh-Board
  • Solved mcqs
  • Student-Guide

Mykidsway.com Logo

Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science

essay on uses and abuses of science

Just as fie is a good slave but a bad master, science too has its positive as well as negative aspects. Science is the most revolutionary thing that has been devised by man. Science does not rely on supposition and imagination but is an organized body of knowledge based on facts. Earth Science was one of the first to be studied and we have come a long way from the days when the Earth was believed to be flat. People are always curious to learn more about the world surrounding them. This has brought about fascinating discoveries and inventions not only in the fields of biology, astronomy, chemistry but in our daily lives too. The vast improvement in the field of medicine the average life expectancy. Diseases like influenza, chickenpox or typhoid are no longer fatal and leprosy and even some forms of cancer are now curable. The crippling disease, polio. Has been eradicated from most parts of the world.

We have better drugs and instruments but men are becoming weak in terms of physique and mind. What an irony of fate it is! Today, we suffer from sensitives ‘ear’, sensitive ‘lung’ and a sensitive ‘liver’ due to fast speed, smoky atmosphere, and dusty roads. So, science makes making happy with its latest achievements but it also makes us unhappy when it shows destructive power. Science can be used for gaining happiness but science put to wrong and negative use, can cause unimaginable disasters.

Science has given us such comforts as were unimaginable a few years ago. Today, we switch on the radio and listen to music. We have electricity, telephone, television, washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioning plants, satellites, cellular phones, metro trains, fast trains, aircraft, and most modern medical systems. All these things have made the life of a man very comfortable. The electric fans, cinemas, cars, trams, mobile phones, and jumbo aircraft are among other scientific inventions and discoveries that have made life easy and comfortable.

The industrial revolution has been a landmark in the development of many countries. Rapid industrialization required more markets and that gave rise to the concept of colonization. Today, the major concern with most developed countries is the management of their industrial waste. More recently, the concern has shifted to the disposal of radioactive waste. Scientists have discovered nuclear energy which is a non-polluting source of energy, but there has been an increase in the number of disasters caused by radioactive waste. Cases like Chernoby! Hiroshima-Nagasaki and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy highlight the ill-effects of nuclear energy. Though presently it is the best alternative for the increasing requirement of energy, we cannot overlook the increasing requirement of energy, we cannot overlook the ever-increasing use, or rather misuse, of nuclear energy and development of sophisticated and powerful nuclear weapons.

Science has progressed in both the domains-constructive as well as destructive. The latest triumphs of science try to remove the evils of disease and death. These have also increased the threat to human life. On the destructive side, science has invented weapons that are most dreadful and disastrous. The inventions of laser beams, neutron bombs, and hydrogen bombs have increased the chances of human destruction. If these weapons are put to use, they would spell disaster for the entire mankind.

One of the most frequent and popular questions which are often asked is, “Are scientific inventions making us happier?” Science has made life easier for men. Telecommunication and technology have made the world, not just a small place, but a tiny world. We can talk to a person across the world sitting in front of our webcams, we can send pictures and videos in minutes over the net and we can carry a world of information in a tiny microchip. However, we must keep in mind that wrongful exploitation of science can result in disastrous consequences like nuclear wars, high levels of atmospheric pollution and a widespread loss of life and property.

As modern age is of science, man has become calculative and mechanical. Science is advancing and it is thwarting our civilization. In the kingdom of science, words like love, affection, and sentiments are fast becoming alien. So what is the use of science for man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Spiritualism is on the wane while materialism is on the rise. Philosophy, culture, and poetry are fading from human life because of the rapid advancement of science.

Therefore, the opinion remains divided on the science is a boon or bane. No one claims for certain that science is complete happiness or an impending curse. However, the latest triumphs and victories of science need to be properly utilized, otherwise, they can bring certain death and destruction to the human race.

More Educational Resources

Explore similar educational resources that improve a variety of skills and cultivate a love for learning.

 alt=

Republic Day Celebrations

My Hobby-Reading

My Hobby-Reading

Hard Work

Democracy and Its Needs

U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

The .gov means it’s official. Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

The site is secure. The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

  • Publications
  • Account settings

Preview improvements coming to the PMC website in October 2024. Learn More or Try it out now .

  • Advanced Search
  • Journal List
  • FASEB Bioadv
  • v.2(10); 2020 Oct

Logo of fasebbioadv

Abusing science

Joseph d. mcinerney.

1 Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics, American Society of Human Genetics, Lutherville MD, USA

Michael J. Dougherty

2 Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora CO, USA

The perversion of science in the interest of ideology and greed is not a new phenomenon, but a public that is largely scientifically illiterate now is besieged by “alternative facts” and well‐designed efforts to discredit legitimate science on topics ranging from vaccines to climate change. Here, we examine three topics rooted in biology and biomedicine—creationism, harms from tobacco, and opioid addiction—to show that those purveying misinformation employ a consistent pattern of intellectual dishonesty to delegitimize science that challenges their ideological positions. Individual scientists and the scientific community at large should confront and counter these attacks on the intellectual integrity that is at the heart of the scientific enterprise.

“The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.” Thomas Henry Huxley, keynote address at the inauguration of Johns Hopkins University 12 September 1876

1. INTRODUCTION

In August 2017, the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT), in the United States, published an editorial titled “Teaching Biology in the Age of ‘Alternative Facts’”. 1 Biology teachers in the U.S. certainly were accustomed to being besieged by the alternative facts of creationism, especially as that movement morphed from its religious foundations to the charades of “creation science” and “intelligent design,” failed attempts to make the Christian creation myth less overtly violative of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

Given that history, why would NABT’s board feel compelled to issue a broader statement on “alternative facts” and the challenges they present to teachers and students? The editorial explains as follows:

In an age of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” our society is constantly bombarded with disinformation designed to undermine the principles under which scientific inquiry operates and cast doubt on conclusions derived through the scientific enterprise…. Our members understand that the recent efforts to cast doubt on the science of climate change or the process of evolution are no more valid than past campaigns that attempted to cast doubt on the deleterious health effects of tobacco use or the benefits of immunization for individuals and society….When science denialism goes unchallenged, each instance not only impacts that specific area of science, but serves to undermine all of science, with dramatic and harmful effects. 1

As the editorial indicates, the range of scientific topics threatened by disinformation is broad, and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic quickly became subject to the same threats, ranging from inaccurate, even dangerous, speculation issued by the White House 2 to frank scams designed to bilk a nervous public out of its money. 3

When confronting such misinformation, is it sufficient for scientists simply to remind the public that science does not recognize “alternative facts” and designates them as “errors”? We think not. When confronting willful misinformation, it is important to be clear about the objectives of those who are inventing and promulgating “alternative facts” in the current political climate. Those responsible are not seeking to engage the public in abstruse and nuanced discussions about epistemology. Their intent, rather, is to delegitimize valid science, to obfuscate the issues at hand, and to confuse a public that has low scientific literacy. 4 , 5 , 6 To counter those efforts, the public needs to understand the often‐malign motives of the individuals and entities responsible, and it needs the tools to distinguish valid information from sheer nonsense.

Motives for the invention and promulgation of “alternative facts” often have their roots in ideology—political, religious, economic, and otherwise. In trying to combat willful misinformation and “alternative facts,” therefore, one must do more than provide the correct information. The “deficit model” of improving science literacy by merely providing accurate content is known to be inadequate because scientific knowledge is linked to attitudes about science. 5 The history of the evolution/creation controversy makes clear, for example, that scientists cannot simply “throw facts at the problem,” as Eugenie Scott, long‐time director of the National Center for Science Education, often said, and the steady accumulation of evidence that supports descent with modification, including comparative genomic sequencing, has had little or no impact on creationists. Both of us have asked creationists to identify scientific evidence that would convince them of the validity of evolution. The unequivocal answer has been, “there is none.”

In the face of such intransigence, one must consider the best use of time, intellectual energy, and resources, and one must understand and address the ideologies that make its adherents embrace erroneous information and that leave them refractory to legitimate science. Further, one must be clear on the meaning of “ideology” itself, especially in the context of science‐related controversies.

Throughout this paper, our definition of ideology will follow that of David Joravsky, developed in The Lysenko Affair , 7 his detailed analysis of one of history's most notorious and long‐lived ideological attacks on the integrity of science. According to Joravsky:

When we call a belief “ideological,” we are saying at least three things about it: although it is unverified or unverifiable, it is accepted as verified by a particular group, because it performs social functions for that group. “Group” is used loosely to indicate such aggregations as parties, professions, classes, or nations. “Because” is also used loosely, to indicate a functional correlation rather than a strictly causal connection between acceptance of a belief and other social processes. 7

The intent of the several examples that follow is to demonstrate the pattern of willful ignorance and duplicity that underlies assaults on the integrity of science driven by ideology. There are other examples, of course, but those we have chosen have their roots in the abuse of biology and biomedicine. For each topic we review briefly the underlying science, falsehoods promulgated by the abusers, intended audience(s), mechanisms for distribution, underlying ideologies, damage, and potential repair.

2. CREATIONISM

Perhaps no issue at the interface of biology and American society has the staying power and pervasive cultural reach of creationism and its factual and ideological conflicts with evolution theory. The conflicts derive largely from the unending growth of scientific and technological knowledge that contradicts the pleasant creationist fictions of Judeo‐Christian scripture and their accounts of the origin of the universe and life on earth.

Readers of this journal know that evolutionary biology and its related disciplines such as geology posit an ancient age for the universe, our planet, and its biota. Evolution also demonstrates the relatedness of all species through descent with modification and the appearance of H . sapiens as a product of the same natural processes that produced all other life on earth. Charles Darwin established the mutability of species and the centrality of natural selection in the generation of earth's biodiversity and in the appearance of design in living things. 8 , 9

Although it is not monolithic – there are varieties of creationism – the creationist belief system is rooted in a broad, interrelated network of falsehoods that challenge virtually all assumptions of evolution theory and seek to affirm scriptural accounts of life's origin and diversity. The Genesis account of creation is, according to its adherents, the true and inspired word of God. Creationist literature asserts that the universe and life on earth are anything but ancient; young‐earth creationists have settled on roughly 6000 years. Species are said to be immutable and were specially created by a supernatural entity, the God of Judeo‐Christian scripture. Intelligent design, the most recent putatively scientific iteration of creationism, leaves the designer unnamed so as to escape legal sanction in court cases that adjudicate creationism's religious intent. According to creationists, H . sapiens was created by God in his image. Furthermore, the fit of a species to its niche is claimed to be evidence of an intelligent designer, not the result of cumulative, iterative selection acting on naturally occurring inherited variation.

Creationism's underlying ideology is a powerful and toxic blend of religion and social engineering, performing social functions for those who insist on the validity and authority of revealed knowledge and those with a commitment to a religious foundation for the basic structure of society, including governance. The relentless drive to insert creationism into public schools reflects the desire of its adherents to ensure that public education reflects sectarian principles. 10 , 11

A secondary motivation, if not precisely an ideology in the Joravsky sense of the term, is greed. Individuals and entities whose educational materials promote creationist perspectives, for example, stand to profit from adoption of those materials by religious institutions or by public schools whose administrations support creationist perspectives in the curriculum. Similarly, those who run creationist theme parks such as the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum, both in Kentucky, derive revenue from those attractions, 12 notwithstanding their scientific bankruptcy.

Intended audiences for creationism are expansive and reflect the underlying ideology. The general public, students, and teachers, for example, are targets of creationist content that seeks to support the validity and acceptance of the movement's underlying religious perspectives. On the other hand, creationists often target school boards, state legislatures, and the courts at all levels in their continuing, but largely unsuccessful efforts to secure political and legal sanctions for the inclusion of creationist content in public institutions.

Distribution of creationist ideology occurs through well‐established religious institutions, especially fundamentalist Christian churches in the United States, and through their associated print and electronic media. In Islamic countries such as Turkey, creationist textbooks have reflected the perspectives of leading American creationist organizations and have enjoyed support of the national government, 13 in this case with the intent of weakening long‐standing public support for a secular society and government.

Creationist organizations in the U.S., such as Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute, produce “research” that purports to demonstrate the scientific validity of creationism, though the relevant work products rarely if ever find their way into legitimate, peer‐reviewed scientific journals. The aggrieved authors claim discipline‐wide conspiracies on the part of scientists to bar creationist “research” from the scientific literature, a charge that itself performs a social function by bolstering the assertion that religious freedom is under attack by a secular society.

The mainstream media often has been complicit in the promulgation of creationist views by its insistence on “presenting both sides of the evolution/creationism controversy,” a classic example of the false equivalence of some competing ideas. In reality, there are not two equal sides of this issue; there is science and there is pseudoscience and mysticism.

Creationist propaganda calls the cadence on a march toward ignorance for thousands of members of the adult public and for thousands of students who are exposed to mysticism masquerading as science. This assault on scientific integrity damages the public's understanding of biology in particular. It is, of course, possible to teach biology without addressing evolution—it happens all the time 14 —but it is not possible to understand biology if one does not realize that evolution is the central organizing concept of the entire discipline. 15

Beyond biology, creationist propaganda damages science in general in at least three ways. First, creationists assert repeatedly that “evolution is only a theory”, 16 a claim that reduces a theory to little more than an ephemeral guess, when science actually views a theory as a compelling conceptual framework that explains and organizes a large body of observations and experimental results. Indeed, “theories are the end points of science”, 17 not the speculative beginnings. Second, creationism begins with a set of conclusions and acknowledges only data that support them, a perversion of deductive reasoning. Science, by contrast, relies on a combination of (honest) deductive processes, which use questions and hypothesis‐testing to go where the data lead, even if the destination is not what one had hoped, and inductive processes. Indeed, Darwin's work was itself a monument to the power of inductive reasoning as he collected detailed observations over decades until he was able to shape them into a general theory, arguably the most impressive act of synthetic thinking in the history of biology. Third, the use of political and legislative tactics to compel inclusion of creationism in the public‐school curriculum circumvents the standard processes by which scientific content is vetted, accepted as part of the corpus of scientific knowledge, and, ultimately, incorporated into science education.

Finally, creationism does serious damage to secular societies and governance by seeking to overturn the underlying assumptions of separation of church and state, and to religion by forcing it to reject overwhelming scientific evidence and to adhere to patently erroneous—even ridiculous—propositions to explain the history and nature of life on earth.

Repair of the damage to science and society done by creationism is problematic given that surveys show public attitudes toward evolution have remained virtually unchanged for decades. 18 About half of the American public, for example, still accepts that all life on earth was created withing the last 10,000 years by a supernatural entity and has remained unchanged since that time. Damage control, especially in the United States, may be the only real option for science and scientists because, as Gary Wills 19 has written, creationism will never disappear because “the Bible will never stop being the central book of Western civilization.”

Scientists and science educators who have dealt with the leaders of the creationist movement for many years know that it generally is pointless to argue with them; they are essentially impervious to scientific data and to reason. The better use of time and resources is to determine where these leaders are attempting to influence policies—educational, political, legal—and to meet the battle there. The law, for example, clearly is on the side of science, 20 and one should use it to blunt attempts to insert religious dogma into the science curriculum.

Too often, working scientists fail to take creationist efforts seriously, dismissing them as so absurd as to be unworthy of attention. History shows that view to be dangerously mistaken, and scientists should be willing to help oppose any attempts to insert creationist dogma into science education.

One should not, however, tackle these issues without substantive, experienced assistance. The National Center for Science Education ( https://ncse.ngo/ ) is a very good place to start when looking for such help. Furthermore, scientists, no matter how well versed in evolution theory, should resist invitations to debate creationists. Such events are not really debates—creationists are unconstrained by the truth—but rather performances by creationist hucksters. A classic example of the willful perversion of science in such events is the claim that the second law of thermodynamics precludes evolution. That assertion was standard debate fare for the late Duane Gish, former director of the oxymoronic Institute for Creation Research. Gish, who held a PhD in biochemistry from University of California, Berkeley, clearly knew better, but he perpetuated the lie nonetheless before lay audiences.

There still is benefit and hope in dealing with students, some of whom have been sold the false notion that they must choose between evolution and their faith. Experienced educators who are knowledgeable in biology and scripture can help guide such students through this challenge, but that skill requires more than an understanding of evolution; it requires as well a deep understanding of the social functions creationism performs for the believer.

3. SMOKING IS HARMLESS

Tobacco has a long history in America, beginning with its cultivation by Native Americans, but the commercialization of tobacco by early British colonists—and the profits it generated—would provide, centuries later, an incentive for the abuse of science using sophisticated methods that now serve as a playbook for other industries and ideologies. Despite tobacco's pre‐Revolutionary origins as a commodity, it was not until the early twentieth century that cigarettes replaced chewing tobacco as the major consumer tobacco product. Before long, rapidly increasing lung cancer diagnoses, which had been rare, began to raise concerns about the harmful effects of smoking. 21

Studies from the 1920s through the 1940s linked smoking with lung cancer, but these had been retrospective and relied heavily on smokers’ self‐reported—and often unreliable—use of cigarettes, which allowed tobacco companies to criticize any potential cause and effect relationship. The results of the first large prospective study were published in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1954, which demonstrated significant increases in deaths among cigarette smokers due to cancer and heart disease. 22 The authors wrote that “… we are of the opinion that the associations found between regular cigarette smoking and death rates from diseases of the coronary arteries and between regular cigarette smoking and death rates from lung cancer reflect cause and effect relationships.”

Additional studies supported those results, and now we know a great deal more about both the hazards of tobacco use and the mechanisms by which those harms are effected. There are more than 7000 chemicals in smoked tobacco, hundreds of which are harmful and at least 69 of which are carcinogenic. The harmful effects occur when cells absorb these chemicals, which then damage DNA and disrupt normal function. The changes can contribute not only to cardiovascular disease and cancer but to a variety of other diseases, such as immune system disorders. 23 Smoking during pregnancy is a major contributor to low‐birth weight babies and preterm births. 24

Tobacco companies, rather than respecting the emerging science, were already manipulating it toward ends that would compromise public health. According to court rulings in the landmark trial of “Big Tobacco,” nicotine levels had been manipulated in cigarettes since at least 1954 to encourage smokers to smoke more. 25 Leaders of the major companies lied about this fact for decades, including in hearings before Congress. 26 As far back as 1964, the Surgeon General of the U.S. linked cigarette smoking and disease, and tobacco companies lied about this as well even when their own research showed it to be true. Companies also used false advertising to promote low‐tar cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes, a tactic specially designed for older smokers to prevent them from quitting. 27 Older, current smokers, of course, were not the only target audience for tobacco companies. R.J. Reynolds’ egregious behavior in cultivating youth smokers through its “Joe Camel” advertising campaign has been well documented, and in 1997, after a run of nine years, the campaign was ruled by the Federal Trade Commission to have violated federal law. According to the FTC, “after the campaign began the percentage of kids who smoked Camels became larger than the percentage of adults who smoked Camels”. 28

The distribution of Big Tobacco's messages to promote smoking or to deny its harms were not limited to traditional advertising, such as print ads and event sponsorships. In late 1953, working through leading a public relations agency, Hill and Knowlton, Big Tobacco created an industry‐sponsored research organization, the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC), that was promoted as independent but was, in fact, wholly controlled by the industry. 29 Similar to the organizations that would later promote creation science and intelligent design, TIRC worked to find data in support of a conclusion, in this case the conclusion that smoking was not harmful. One way this was accomplished was by recruiting prominent scientists as leaders, funding scientists who were skeptical about the emerging health consensus, and then using their results in counter‐messaging. 30 Industry‐funded research then, as now, presents potential conflicts of interest, and not all scientists are equally sensitive to, or respectful of, such conflicts. Another goal of TIRC‐funded projects was to undermine mainstream research studies that did not support conclusions favored by TIRC. Common tactics included highlighting flaws in methodology or gaps in understanding the mechanisms of cancer, 29 which were later adapted by creationists (e.g., playing up “gaps” in transitional fossils). According to Brandt, 29 “The TIRC marks one of the most intensive efforts by an industry to derail independent science in modern history.”

The ultimate motive for these efforts at scientific obfuscation was not a religious or social ideology as it is for creationists, which, though misguided, at least has the merit of sincerity. The motive here is rank profit, even at the expense of tobacco customers’ life and health, but the false‐science “belief system” of Big Tobacco still satisfies Joravsky's definition of ideology. Their science is wrong (i.e., unverified); it is accepted as verified by tobacco executives and presumably some smokers; and it performs a social function, for example justifying an economic system that employs thousands. Profit may be the ultimate motive for the tobacco industry, but the cynical, proximate means to that end was far more sophisticated than creationists’ appeal to biblical literalism. According to Brandt:

“Hill & Knowlton [the public relations agency] had successfully produced uncertainty in the face of a powerful scientific consensus. So long as this uncertainty could be maintained, so long as the industry could claim ‘‘not proven,’’ it would be positioned to fight any attempts to assert regulatory authority over the industry. Without their claims of no proof and doubt, the companies would be highly vulnerable in two crucial venues: regulatory politics and litigation.” 29

Eventually scientific proof—achieved honestly—overwhelmed the disreputable science and doubt suffered a serious, but perhaps not fatal, blow. As the tide turned against smoking, the tobacco industry faced both greater regulatory control and lawsuits won by plaintiffs. The damage, however, had been done. Millions of American smokers are addicted to nicotine, and the harms caused by smoking are by now familiar. Even today, after sharp drops in the number of smokers, an estimated 480,000 people die annually from cigarettes in the U.S. More than 90 percent of lung cancer and 80 percent of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is caused by smoking. 31 Smoking is also estimated to cost the U.S. $170 billion per year in direct medical costs, and $300 billion overall. 32

Public health officials have been trying for decades to reduce the health and economic toll of smoking by supporting campaigns to help current smokers quit and to prevent smoking in the young. Given that 95 percent of tobacco smokers began before they were age 21, the most‐effective way to reduce harm is to prevent the development of a new generation of smokers. 33

Unfortunately, we now see some of the same Big Tobacco tactics being used to raise doubts about the potential harms of e‐cigarettes, which are essentially nicotine‐delivery devices. Juul, the largest of the e‐cigarette companies, is now owned in large part by Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, and Vuse is owned by Reynolds American. These Big Tobacco players have an obvious interest in maintaining, and growing, the pool of people addicted to nicotine, and claims that e‐cigarettes are intended primarily to help adults quit smoking are undercut by the companies’ marketing.

Indeed, regulators are alarmed by the popularity of vaping among minors, which was driven largely by first‐wave products with fruit and candy flavors that are appealing to children. E‐cigarette use jumped 78 percent among high schoolers and 48 percent among middle‐schoolers in just one year, from 2017 to 2018. In a statement of concern from the Food and Drug Administration, then‐commissioner Scott Gottlieb outlined steps he intended to take to prevent the use of e‐cigarettes by children. 33 Predictably, lobbyists for tobacco companies, including Altria and Reynolds American, have aligned against legislation to regulate and tax e‐cigarettes. 34

It still is too early to tell whether e‐cigarette companies will attempt to corrupt science in the systematic ways that tobacco companies used to promote smoking. Scientists, public health advocates, and educators, however, should be prepared to counter such disinformation campaigns. K‐12 education, public and private, must do a better job teaching the methods and nature of science, not just its content, but long lag times and an ever‐increasing number of important science issues currently being undermined (e.g., anti‐vaxx, climate change) suggest this will not be sufficient. Efforts should include enlisting the media, traditional and social, to help educate the public about the differences between honest science and the intellectually dishonest “science” peddled by those with alternative motives. Money from pro‐science philanthropists to support such efforts and promotion by key influencers may help level the playing field.

4. FOLLOWING A COMMON PLAYBOOK

Creationism and the hoax of harmless smoking are hardly the only examples of science corrupted in the service of ideologies unrelated to science. With some variation, the tactics used so successfully by creationists and Big Tobacco have been adopted and used by other groups with agendas that range from medicine to the environment. The recent polarization of American politics and society, the denigration of expertise as elitist, and the media's tendency to provide legitimizing, “both sides” coverage of issues, even when undeserved, seem only to have exacerbated this problem.

Opioids provide an interesting example where sloppy scholarship, dishonest marketing, the evolving practice of medicine, the co‐opting of scientific and medical leadership, and greed combined to create an addiction epidemic that has roiled the country for more than two decades. It all began in 1980 with a one‐paragraph letter by Jane Porter and Hershel Jick in the New England Journal of Medicine that made a simple observation: based on hospital records, narcotic addiction was rare in patients with no history of addiction. This was not a formal study, and there was no information about the narcotics being used or their dosage, frequency, or duration. 35 Over time other researchers cited this letter without context or qualification and, in some cases, later apologized for having never read it. An important missing caveat was that Porter and Jick's observation was based on hospitalized patients, not outpatients being prescribed drugs for self‐administration. 36

Unfortunately, this letter ended up serving two masters: a drug industry energized by Madison Avenue‐style marketing and a medical community in the midst of a changing paradigm, namely that pain was being undertreated and should be viewed as a “fifth vital sign”. 36 By the mid‐1990s, disreputable physicians, many of whom had been sanctioned, began opening pill mills across Appalachia. At the same time, Purdue Pharma developed OxyContin as a time‐release drug and promoted it as a less‐additive painkiller in spite of having provided no supporting data to the FDA. They falsely claimed that the narcotic was harder to extract (and thus abuse) than other painkillers when their own studies indicated that 68 percent of the oxycodone could be extracted when crushed and liquified. Phony graphs were also used in marketing to give the impression that the plasma levels of oxycodone were steady when, in fact, they spiked in the users’ blood and then crashed. Purdue Pharma ultimately was called to account, reminiscent of Big Tobacco, when three executives pled guilty to misdemeanor false branding and paid a $634M fine. 36 , 37

If manipulated and fraudulent science were not enough, the opioid industry also followed the Big Tobacco playbook by cultivating physicians, institutions, and organizations willing to support pharma's message that opioids were safe and non‐addictive. As alleged in a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts Attorney General in 2019, “Purdue hired the most prolific opioid prescribers in Massachusetts as spokesmen to promote its drugs to other doctors. Purdue funded the Massachusetts General Hospital Purdue Pharma Pain Program and an entire degree program at Tufts University to influence Massachusetts doctors to use its drugs.” 38 Tufts even promoted a Purdue Pharma employee to Adjunct Associate Professor in 2011. 39

Leading advocacy groups and professional societies also played a role by lobbying on behalf of the opioid industry's marketing and prescribing practices while accepting their donations. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines for primary care providers who prescribe narcotics for non‐cancer chronic pain. Those guidelines encouraged the preferential use of non‐opioid pharmacologic agents, highlighted the risks of addiction, and identified the drugs most likely to cause harm and the patients most at risk. 40 The drug industry did not approve. According to a report from the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), The American Pain Society, the U.S. Pain Foundation, the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, and the American Academy of Pain Management accepted more than $6M from narcotics manufacturers from 2012‐2017. 41 Altogether the report identifies more than a dozen groups receiving almost $9 M from five manufacturers. What did all this largess buy the industry? In part, active opposition to the development and issuance of the CDC guidelines by a majority of the groups identified in the HSGAC report. According to the report: “Many of the groups discussed in this report have amplified or issued messages that reinforce industry efforts to promote opioid prescription and use, including guidelines and policies minimizing the risk of addiction and promoting opioids for chronic pain”. 41

The internet, celebrity culture, and targeted marketing through social media such as Facebook make it easier to spread anti‐science messages to receptive groups than in decades past. Andrew Wakefield's reputation in the scientific community may be in shambles thanks to his fraudulent research claiming a link between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, but his public profile remains high and he is an unfairly maligned hero to the anti‐vaxx community. 42 The TV personality Jenny McCarthy runs a non‐profit called Generation Rescue that continues to provide a forum for Wakefield's dishonest claims, 43 which have caused real harm in the form of depressed vaccination rates in Great Britain and the United States. 44 What was Wakefield's motivation? The now‐familiar motivator of greed, in this case an elaborate scheme to get rich from lawsuits generated by vaccine fears. 45

Today there are also organizations, largely on the political right, that exist solely or in part to cast doubt on science that does not comport with their ideology of opposition to regulation. Not surprisingly this opposition often provides a side benefit: bolstering the economics of specific industries. Some of these organizations are respected think tanks with political philosophies strongly favoring free enterprise, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, which sometimes provide a forum for climate‐change skeptics. 46 , 47 Others identify themselves as grassroots organizations while functioning primarily as lobbying groups for fossil fuel and other industries, such as the Koch‐funded Americans for Prosperity.

The non‐profit Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a particularly interesting example. Through its publishing arm, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, this trade association provides a forum for commentary about free‐market medicine (often not evidence‐based), polemics against regulation in medicine, and sometimes fringe science that has nothing to do with medicine but does align with its overall anti‐regulation ideology. Articles have cast doubt, for example, on the existence of climate change as a global threat, or trumpeted its benefits. 48 , 49 Others have questioned HIV as the cause of AIDS 50 and offered a sympathetic airing of anti‐vaxxers’ fringe view that autism is linked to vaccines, despite evidence to the contrary, even providing a forum for the discredited Andrew Wakefield. 51 , 52 , 53

5. CONCLUSION

Intentional perversion of science in the service of ideology makes clear the validity of the following assertion by neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris:

“The core of science is not controlled experiment or mathematical modeling; it is intellectual honesty. It is time we acknowledge a basic feature of human discourse: when considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't”. 54

Intellectual honesty is the heart of all scholarship, irrespective of the discipline, and the translation of scholarship for the public should honor it, not debase it in the interest of ideology or greed. A public that has low scientific literacy and numeracy now faces a growing wave of misinformation, and that public will struggle to separate valid science from nonsense. 4 , 5 , 6 These trends bode ill for public awareness and acceptance of legitimate science and serve as an injunction for individual scientists and the scientific community to push back aggressively against all attempts to misrepresent the methods and results of sound research.

Strategies to counter the abuse of science vary and depend on the nature and context of the abuse in question. Some strategies may be specific and highly targeted, while others may be more far‐reaching. For example, one of us (JDM) threatened legal action against his children's public‐ school district if a creationist candidate for the board of education made good on his promise to mandate the teaching of creationism in the biology curriculum. On a broader scale, an organization both of us have worked for, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, assisted in a number of evolution/creationism court cases whose decisions had implications at state and national levels.

Whatever the context, prevention of and opposition to the abuse of science begin with the integrity of individual scientists and the scientific community at large, as invoked by Thomas Huxley and Sam Harris. Scientists should model that integrity in their work and should discuss it explicitly with their trainees—the next generation of scientists. Perhaps it is time as well to consider a complete ban on industry‐funded research for individual scientists working in academia and other non‐industry settings to remove incentives for bias in reporting of results and to help ensure the public that research agendas are not determined by corporate interests. Science education for the general public—formal and informal—should emphasize the expectation of intellectual honesty in its treatment of the nature and methods of science. It serves little purpose to impress upon students the steps in “the scientific method” if those steps do not reflect a commitment to ethical conduct.

McInerney JD, Dougherty MJ. Abusing science . FASEB BioAdvances . 2020; 2 :587–595. 10.1096/fba.2020-00054 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

School Essay

Essay On Uses and Abuses of Science

  • Post category: Essay
  • Reading time: 4 mins read

Use of science brought about a great change:

At the dawn of civilization man developed a scientific outlook. With the help of science he made observation and experiment, though they were crude at first. he discovered the relationship between a cause and its effect. He discovered some secrets of nature. He came to know the use of fire. With the help of it, he cooked his meal and scared the wild animals. Then he came to know sowing and planting. He discovered the conditions for seeds to sprout.

He discovered the process for tending plants. He grew crops and stored the surplus. He came from cave to cottage and from cottage to pucca house. He knew the tending of useful animals and put them to his service. He made many works of invention. He grew cotton were due to proper uses of science.

Modern use of science: Uses of science are now inseparable even from out dayto-day life. With the help of science and technology we have made pin to space-craft. We have made highly complicated machines for large-scale productions. We have conquered over time and distance. We are conquering disease and sickness. Radio and telecommunications, XRay and electricity, rotary and railways are all the works of science. So at present the uses of science are many and varied.

Abuses of science: Modern man has begun to abuse his scientific knowledge, invention of atom bomb is the burning example of it. Abuse of science will lead to destruction of mankind.

essay on uses and abuses of science

  • Essay On Non – Cooperative Hospital Staff
  • Essay On Parents as Friends
  • Essay On Nuclear Development And Its Impact
  • Essay On Non-renewable Resources
  • Essay On Necessity Is The Mother Of Invention

Essay On Problem of Unemployment

  • Essay On Prize Distribution Function
  • Essay On Preventive Human Efforts of Reducing Global Warming
  • Essay On Prevention Is Better Than Cure

Please Share This Share this content

  • Opens in a new window

You Might Also Like

Read more about the article Essay On Mother Teresa

Essay On Mother Teresa

Essay on a football match, essay on if i were a principal, essay on a brief past of printing, essay on the autobiography of a river, leave a reply cancel reply.

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

  • Publications
  • CoCom Lists
  • Search for...

The use and abuse of science and technology: rethinking dual-use

  • 23 October 2018 1 March 2019

essay on uses and abuses of science

For over a decade now, I have be rolling around the concept of dual-use in my research, much like how a kitten plays with a fluff ball in the sunbeams of a room. What is the term? I’m mildly interested in it, though it might appear to some others that it’s all I focus on. I like rolling it around, batting it about to see how it will react. I also notice how different it appears in different lights. When I’m engaged in research on security concerns in nuclear settings, the duality presents itself as that between energy production and weapons production. In computing/cyber, it is between defensive and offensive applications. In conventional export controls, it is between civil and military applications.

Many of these contexts for understanding what the ‘dual’ is in dual-use shifted after 2001 to incorporate a focus on terrorism as an ‘other’ category. Perhaps this has been taken up most strongly in biology, where an initial focus on the ‘dual-use dilemma’ of biological research was laid out in the 2004 Fink Report, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism , focusing on how “the same technologies can be used legitimately for human betterment or misused for bioterrorism” (p. 15).

Ten years ago, I would have said that all of these ways of understanding dual-use are curious, and that they all pivoted towards terrorism in the same way, given their different starting points, was even curiouser.* In my research now, I am pivoting to thinking about the limitations of the concept of dual-use itself. Why focus on duality at all?

To work through this question, in the last week or so I have turned back to Foucault, particularly to his lectures on “Society must be defended” . I’ve been really taken with his analysis of the othering that is at the heart of the construction and normalisation of power, regardless of whether that power is centered around a sovereign or distributed throughout a society. “Dual-use” as a term in use today, especially in biology, has been developed, however unconsciously, to structure a group of potentially unruly people (scientists and bioengineers) around a set of practices that employ themselves in the process of governing security concerns in the life sciences. The point that most people don’t know what the ‘dual’ is in ‘dual-use’ when first introduced to it is a very sly tactic to ‘reveal’ to that person a whole world of biosecurity threats that sit beneath the thin veneer of intended beneficial use of advances in biology. This world of threats is presented as real, as definitely out there and in need of constant vigilance to keep at bay.

It is a process of indoctrinating students and researchers into the current dominant narrative of biosecurity governance. The duality, in its general form, might then be considered as a balancing not of military and civil applications of science and technology, but as balancing ‘use’ and ‘abuse’. Normalising researchers into a biopolitics of biosecurity is about creating a system of relations between them and the rest of society that governs themselves. ‘Abuse’ here can then refer to non-socially sanctioned uses of biology. Is it ok for DARPA to be developing biotechnologies? Is it ok for companies to be developing massive synthesising capacity when capacity to understand things like pathogenicity are still not clearly known? Whether these are uses or abuses of a line of innovation can only be answered within particular epistemes.

Characterising the concept of dual-use this way, we can more clearly see a stumbling block that isn’t very widely acknowledged in biosecurity governance right now: to define what constitutes an abuse of power of biotechnology is to agree on the terms of reference for the debate. Do we? There seems to be broad, though perhaps more tenuous than some would like, consensus for not using biology as a weapon (the Biological Weapons Convention). But where novel biological security concerns are going to come from is not entirely clear. A system of governing based on bright lines around known objects of concern, like the American policies on Dual-Use Research of Concern , relies on a central authority to define a threat, but on a distributed network of practitioners to internalize that threat and govern themselves. Many of them, however, do not perceive the threat in the way the state does, and what do you do about threats that are not yet known?

There are two different understandings of security that are at play in the dual-use debate these days: one that has a clear authority searching for the objective list of objects of concern and clear examples of what will happen when rules about their use are disobeyed; and one that has a network of varying levels and kinds of awareness and attention to security governance of science and technology, coupled with a situated and responsive responsibility for addressing concerns as they are identified. I don’t think we yet appreciate the radically different forms of governing these are based on.

* We are indeed going down a Lewis Carroll rabbit hole.

Share this:

  • Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

  • We're Hiring!
  • Help Center

paper cover thumbnail

The Use and Abuse of Science

Profile image of Tania Guardado

  •   We're Hiring!
  •   Help Center
  • Find new research papers in:
  • Health Sciences
  • Earth Sciences
  • Cognitive Science
  • Mathematics
  • Computer Science
  • Academia ©2024

peroformdigi logo

Essay on Uses and abuses of  science in 200 – 300 words

Essay on Uses and Abuse of science:

We are living in the age of science. Scientific inventions have revolutionized human life. They have brought about remarkable changes in our ways of living and make the world a better and happier place for us.

Science has made our domestic life comfortable. Science has discovered many useful things. The invention of the Gramophone, Radio , Television , Cinema , Computer , etc.  has added to our pleasure and made life interesting.

Science has reduced human labour. It has invented various machines for different kinds of jobs. Machines sweep and cook for us. Electric fans and coolers protect us against the heat of summer. Refrigeration and cold storage have helped the preservation of food articles and make possible their exchange between different countries.

Science has proved to be a great blessing in agriculture , industry , and in fields of medicine and surgery . It is no more a thing of surprise that electricity can be produced from the wind.

Besides all this, science has also invented bombs , guns, missiles, etc. These things can prove destructive if they go in the hands of some foolish people.

So, science is both, useful and harmful. If we use it in a proper way, it can make our life happy. But always remember that the wrong way use of science may very dangerous for the world.

  • Essay on The Television
  • Essay on Delhi metropolitan city

Essay on Uses and abuses of science in 200 – 300 words PDF

3 thoughts on “essay on uses and abuses of science in 200 300 words”.

' src=

Please send me to my gamil

' src=

Hi.. Thanks for Visiting our website if you want to know more about writing a essay on a uses and abuses of science more about Different types of essay writting then this blog will help you. if you have any query you can comment.

Leave a Comment Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

Notify me of follow-up comments by email.

Notify me of new posts by email.

CBSE Library

Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay | Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science for Students and Children in English

Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay – Given below is a Long and Short Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science of competitive exams, kids and students belonging to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The Uses And Abuses Of Science essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations.

You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science 500+ Words for Kids and Students in English

Just as fire is a good slave but a bad master, science too has its positive as well as negative aspects. Science is the most revolutionary thing that has been devised by man. Science does not rely on supposition and imagination, but is an organised body of knowledge based on facts. Earth Science was one of the first to be studied and we have some a long way from the days when the Earth was believed to be flat.

People are always curious to learn more about the world surrounding them. This has brought about fascinating discoveries and inventions not only in the fields of biology, astronomy, chemistry but in our daily lives too. Vast improvement in the field of medicine has resulted in the controlling of epidemics, and increasing the average life expectancy. Diseases like influenza, chickenpox or typhoid are no longer fatal and leprosy and even some forms of cancer are now curable. The crippling disease, polio, has been eradicated from most parts of the world.

Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay

We have better drugs and instruments but men are becoming weak in terms of physique and mind. What an irony of fate it is! Today, we suffer from sensitive ‘ear’, sensitive lung’ and a sensitive liver’ due to fast speed, smoky atmosphere and dusty roads. So, science makes mankind happy by its latest achievements but it also makes us unhappy when it shows distructive power. Science can be used for gaining happiness but science put to wrong and negative use, can cause unimaginable disasters.

Science has given us such comfrots as were unimaginable a few years ago. Today, we switch on the radio and listen to music. We have electricity, telephone, television, washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioning plants, satellites, cellular phones, metro trains, fast trains, aircraft and the most modern medicine systems. All these things have made the life of man very comfortable. The electric fans, cinemas, cars, trams, mobile phones and jumbo aircraft are among other scientific inventions and discoveries that have made life easy and comfortable.

The industrial revolution has been a landmark in the development of many countries. Rapid industrialisation required more markets and that gave rise to the concept of colonisation. Today, the major concern with most developed countries is the management of their industrial waste. More recently, the concern has shifted to the disposal of radioactive waste. Scientists have discovered nuclear energy which is a non-polluting source of energy, but there has been an increase in the number of disasters caused by radioactive waste.

Cases like Chernobyl, Hiroshima-Nagasaki and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy highlight the ill-effects of nuclear energy. Though presently it is the best alternative for the increasing requirement of energy, we cannot overlook the ever-increasing use, or rather misuse, of nuclear energy and development of sophisticated and powerful nuclear weapons.

Short Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science 300 Words for Kids and Students in English

Science has progressed in both the domains – constructive as well as destructive. The latest triumphs of science try to remove the evils of disease and death. These have also increased the threat to human life. On the destructive side, science has invented weapons that are most dreadful and disastrous. The inventions of laser beams, neutron bomb and hydrogen bombs have increased the chances of human destruction. If these weapons are put to use, they would spell disaster for the entire mankind.

One of the most frequent and popular question which is often asked is, “Are scientific inventions making us happier?” Science has definitely made life easier for man. Telecommunication and technology have made the world, not just a small place, but a tiny world. We can talk to a person across the world sitting in front of our webcams, we can send pictures and videos in minutes over the net and we can carry a world of information in a tiny microchip. However, we must keep in mind that wrongful exploitation of science can result in disastrous consequences like nuclear wars, high levels of atmospheric pollution and a widespread loss of life and property.

As modern age is an age of science, man has become calculative and mechanical. Science is advancing and it is thwarting our civilisation. In the kingdom of science, words like love, affection and sentiments are fast becoming alien. So what is the use of science for man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Spiritualism is on the wane while materialism is on the rise. Philosophy, culture and poetry are fading from human life because of the rapid advancement of science.

Therefore, the opinion remains divided on the science being a boon or bane. No one claims for certain that science is complete happiness or an impending curse. However, the latest triumphs and victories of science need to be properly utilised, otherwise, they can bring certain death and destruction to the human race.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

Sample essay on the uses and abuses of Science

essay on uses and abuses of science

Science has been defined as a systematized body of knowledge. It is neither good nor bad in itself. It is the use of science that makes it good or bad. Man may use it for his welfare as well as for warfare. It is a blessing in peace and curse in war.

Science is a blessing. By applying science man has, gained control over nature. Man is no longer a slave to his surroundings. He has conquered time and space. Buses, trains, aero planes enable man to travel more and more distance without any difficulty.

Even on the wide oceans he covers his voyage without any worry. Besides these, there are telephones and-telegraphs which enable man to keep contact with his friends and relatives without any difficulty. So it seems that the world has contracted.

In past, man had no control over the scorching summer and shivering winter. But now man is the master of environment. During summer he uses cooler, electric fans and during winter he uses room heaters to give him warmth.

ADVERTISEMENTS:

Man has many enemies which he could not know in past. But now he has been successful in discovering bacteria, virus and other harmful germs. They are easily seen with microscope and are easily killed by medicines. X-rays, CT scans, Ultra Sound Tests, Laparoscopy are some of the recent developments in medical science with which terrible diseases at remote parts of human body can be detected.

Man, today, enjoys more comforts and luxuries than ever before. He has a much higher standard of living. Better irrigation facilities, improved farming tools, hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers etc. have increased the agricultural output.

After hard work, man needs healthy recreation to relax him. Science has provided radio, cinema, television etc. for our entertainment. Due to the invention and spread of printing press, education has successfully- reached the common man.

Blessings of science are numerous. But this is only one side of the picture. In the past man has many times misused the knowledge of science. In big industries machines are used to increase production. But industrialization has given rise to competition, unemployment and capitalism. Machines have thrown thousands out of employment. Capitalism has caused class-struggle and exploitation of many people.

Man was safe in past. But now due to the invention of destructive weapons he is unsafe. If ever the Third Worlds War is fought, the entire civilization will come to an end. Science has reduced spiritualism in man and has converted him into a moral pigmy.

If we impartially look at the problems, then we will find that man is responsible for the blessings or curse of science. If science is used properly, then people will live peacefully.

Related Articles:

  • Short Essay on Science: Blessing or Curse?
  • 188 Words Essay for kids on wonders of science
  • 361 Words essay on Science in every-pay life
  • 464 Words Sample Essay for kids on the winter season (free to read)

Essay on Science is a Blessing or Curse with Quotations for Students

English essay science, a curse or blessing with quotations for matric, f.a, fsc and b.a.

Science is a Blessing or Curse Essay is here on IlmiHub.com . This is an important essay for those outstanding students who are looking for the material for examinations. However, other people can also learn it for general knowledge and job tests. Science, a Curse or Blessing Essay will discuss the uses and abuses of science .

Science is a Blessing or Curse Essay with Quotes for Class 10, Class 12 (2nd Year) and Graduation Examination

“Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him and calls the adventure Science.” (Edwin Powell Hubble)

Man is curious by nature. He wishes to uncover the mysterious things. So he has concentrated on various issues and explored the several hidden truths. Science has helped him in his efforts to do so. As far as the question of science is a blessing or curse is concerned, it is obvious that everything has its uses and abuses. Science can be used both as a curse or a blessing. It totally depends on the human beings how they prefer to use it. The usage of these gifts of science for a positive aim will surely give sweet results but its negative usage will result in disasters. So it would be difficult to declare science as a curse or a blessing.

Undoubtedly, science has helped mankind achieve fantastic mental growth. Science has provided humans a vision to explore the secrets of nature. We have already made the world “a small place to live” and have gone even out of our own planet. We are exploring the depth of the earth. We have been able to increase the longevity, reduced the decaying effect of nature on the human body.

“A man of science is just a student of nature and derives his inspiration from science” (C.V. Romanas)

With the help of medical science, man has achieved tremendous success. Scientists are now finding the cure for fatal diseases by making extraordinary drugs and medicines. There was a time when diseases such as malaria, influenza and tuberculosis were considered to be incurable. But now even some forms of cancer are curable. All this would not have been possible if medical science had not progressed.

Science has also benefitted us in the production and preservation of foods. The construction of our homes and the improvement in communication and transportation. It is through the help of science that man has become more rational and realistic. It would be unthankful on our part if we don’t identify how vast benefits modern technology has offered us.

But this is one side of the picture. Some people are of the view that science is a chief cause of human sufferings. They have reasons to say that science and its applications are not, on the whole, good for mankind. Industrialism brought new troubles. It proved harmful to cottage industry; hence it caused unemployment. It introduced new machines and supported the cruelty of the capitalists over the labourers. The rich gained much by exploiting the poor workers. The use of machinery to the service of man resulted in more evils.

“The machine does not isolate man from the great problems of nature but plunges him more deeply into them.” (Antoine de Saint)

How can we forget the day of August 6, I945 when the first atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima by the US. Military? Three days later, the United States, dropped a second atom bomb on the city of Nagasaki bringing World War ll to an end. In total, more than 140,000 people were estimated to be killed.

In the social field, the use of science has also produced bad results. The use of machinery has given a new speed to man’s life and activity. He has become materialistic. The moral values of life are now considered things of the past. The system of joint family has shattered. Art and literature have been badly affected by the impact of mechanization. Medicines and other surgical aids are available to the people but these have not promoted a better standard of health. On the other hand, millions of dollars are being spent on the inventions of dangerous war weapons. In the modern world, corruption and lust are also gifts of science. Man’s life is becoming more and more artificial.

“If there is technological advance without social advance, there is, almost automatically, an increase in human misery, in impoverishment.” (Michael Harrington)

From the above discussion on the merits and demerits of science . we can conclude that science is actually neither a blessing nor a curse. It is what man makes of it. Science can be the greatest of the blessings or the worst of the curses. In fact, science is not to be blamed but the man who uses it badly. Science has neither urged man to invent destructive weapons nor forced him to be materialistic selfish and greedy. If we don’t use it for constructive purposes it is obviously not the fault of science but ours. Science is only a servant and it depends on us how we get services from it. Science surely offers innumerable benefits to humankind but we need to use it sensibly and wisely.

“Why does this magnificent applied science, which saves work and makes life easier bring us so little happiness? The simple answer runs: Because we have not yet learned to make sensible use of it.” (Albert Einstein)

Science, an Enemy of Man Essay is also an essay like science is a blessing or curse essay .

  • More In English Essays

Essay Writing 101: The Basics That Every Writer Should Know

Student and Social Services Essay

Students and Social Service Essay with Quotations

load Shedding Essay, Essay on Load Shedding in Pakistan, Energy Crisis Essay

Load Shedding in Pakistan Essay – 1200 Words

Leave a reply cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

essay on uses and abuses of science

  • Privacy Policty
  • Terms of Service
  • Advertise with Us

Yale University Press

On The Site

  • The Institution for Social and Policy Studies
  • social science

Field Experiments and Their Critics

Field Experiments and Their Critics

Essays on the Uses and Abuses of Experimentation in the Social Sciences

Edited by Dawn Langan Teele

Series: The Institution for Social and Policy Studies

  • Request Print Exam/Desk Copy
  • Request eBook Exam Copy

280 Pages , 6.12 x 9.25 x 0.62 in , 1 b-w illus.

  • 9780300169409
  • Published: Tuesday, 7 Jan 2014
  • 9780300199307

Also Available At:

  • Barnes & Noble
  • Seminary Co-op
  • Description

Dawn Langan Teele is a Research Fellow at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Yale University

"An excellent book on a subject that lies at the center of current methodological debates in the social sciences. The volume brings together many of the leading protagonists and antagonists (i.e., skeptics) of the experimental method and in the process illustrates the strengths, and the limitations, of this powerful method. Astute and readable. Highly recommended."—John Gerring, author of Social Science Methodology: A Unified Framework ~John Gerring
"Advocates and critics of experimental methods debate vigorously in this exceptionally important set of essays.   Neither scholars nor policy makers can remain aloof from this great debate; all will be rewarded by a close reading of this indispensable and engaging guide to the core questions of our discipline." - David Waldner, author of State Building and Late Development ~David Waldner

Related Books

Inquiry and Change

Sign up for updates on new releases and special offers

Newsletter signup, shipping location.

Our website offers shipping to the United States and Canada only. For customers in other countries:

Mexico and South America: Contact TriLiteral to place your order. All Others: Visit our Yale University Press London website to place your order.

Shipping Updated

Learn more about Schreiben lernen, 2nd Edition, available now. 

  • Donate to Charities
  • Privacy Policy

eEnglishGrammar.com

Uses and abuses of science.

If you have come this far, it means that you liked what you are reading. Why not reach little more and connect with me directly on Facebook or Twitter . I would love to hear your thoughts and opinions on my articles directly.

Post A Comment:

0 comments:.

IMP.CENTER

Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay | Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science for Students and Children in English

essay on uses and abuses of science

Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay – Given below is a Long and Short Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science of competitive exams, kids and students belonging to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The Uses And Abuses Of Science essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations.

You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science 500+ Words for Kids and Students in English

Just as fire is a good slave but a bad master, science too has its positive as well as negative aspects. Science is the most revolutionary thing that has been devised by man. Science does not rely on supposition and imagination, but is an organised body of knowledge based on facts. Earth Science was one of the first to be studied and we have some a long way from the days when the Earth was believed to be flat.

People are always curious to learn more about the world surrounding them. This has brought about fascinating discoveries and inventions not only in the fields of biology, astronomy, chemistry but in our daily lives too. Vast improvement in the field of medicine has resulted in the controlling of epidemics, and increasing the average life expectancy. Diseases like influenza, chickenpox or typhoid are no longer fatal and leprosy and even some forms of cancer are now curable. The crippling disease, polio, has been eradicated from most parts of the world.

Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay

We have better drugs and instruments but men are becoming weak in terms of physique and mind. What an irony of fate it is! Today, we suffer from sensitive ‘ear’, sensitive lung’ and a sensitive liver’ due to fast speed, smoky atmosphere and dusty roads. So, science makes mankind happy by its latest achievements but it also makes us unhappy when it shows distructive power. Science can be used for gaining happiness but science put to wrong and negative use, can cause unimaginable disasters.

Science has given us such comfrots as were unimaginable a few years ago. Today, we switch on the radio and listen to music. We have electricity, telephone, television, washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioning plants, satellites, cellular phones, metro trains, fast trains, aircraft and the most modern medicine systems. All these things have made the life of man very comfortable. The electric fans, cinemas, cars, trams, mobile phones and jumbo aircraft are among other scientific inventions and discoveries that have made life easy and comfortable.

The industrial revolution has been a landmark in the development of many countries. Rapid industrialisation required more markets and that gave rise to the concept of colonisation. Today, the major concern with most developed countries is the management of their industrial waste. More recently, the concern has shifted to the disposal of radioactive waste. Scientists have discovered nuclear energy which is a non-polluting source of energy, but there has been an increase in the number of disasters caused by radioactive waste.

Cases like Chernobyl, Hiroshima-Nagasaki and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy highlight the ill-effects of nuclear energy. Though presently it is the best alternative for the increasing requirement of energy, we cannot overlook the ever-increasing use, or rather misuse, of nuclear energy and development of sophisticated and powerful nuclear weapons.

Short Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science 300 Words for Kids and Students in English

Science has progressed in both the domains – constructive as well as destructive. The latest triumphs of science try to remove the evils of disease and death. These have also increased the threat to human life. On the destructive side, science has invented weapons that are most dreadful and disastrous. The inventions of laser beams, neutron bomb and hydrogen bombs have increased the chances of human destruction. If these weapons are put to use, they would spell disaster for the entire mankind.

One of the most frequent and popular question which is often asked is, “Are scientific inventions making us happier?” Science has definitely made life easier for man. Telecommunication and technology have made the world, not just a small place, but a tiny world. We can talk to a person across the world sitting in front of our webcams, we can send pictures and videos in minutes over the net and we can carry a world of information in a tiny microchip. However, we must keep in mind that wrongful exploitation of science can result in disastrous consequences like nuclear wars, high levels of atmospheric pollution and a widespread loss of life and property.

As modern age is an age of science, man has become calculative and mechanical. Science is advancing and it is thwarting our civilisation. In the kingdom of science, words like love, affection and sentiments are fast becoming alien. So what is the use of science for man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Spiritualism is on the wane while materialism is on the rise. Philosophy, culture and poetry are fading from human life because of the rapid advancement of science.

Therefore, the opinion remains divided on the science being a boon or bane. No one claims for certain that science is complete happiness or an impending curse. However, the latest triumphs and victories of science need to be properly utilised, otherwise, they can bring certain death and destruction to the human race.

Global Warming Essay | Essay on Global Warming for Students and Children in English

Pollution: A Threat To Life Essay | Essay on Pollution: A Threat To Life for Students and Children in English

Father’s Day Essay | Essay on Fathers Day for Students and Children in English

My Father Essay | Essay On My Father My Role Model for Students and Children

Conversation Between Teacher and Student in English | Simple Conversations Between…

English Conversation Between Doctor and Patient in Four Simple Scenarios

Conversation Between Two Friends After a Long Time, About Pollution and Study

Advantages and Disadvantages Essay Topics for Students, IELTS & Learners

Fixed Exchange Rate Advantages And Disadvantages | What are the Major Advantages And…

Positive Words that Start With F | List of 48 Positive Words Starting With F Pictures…

Advantages And Disadvantages Of Entrepreneurship | What is Entrepreneurship?, Pros…

Comments are closed.

Welcome, Login to your account.

Recover your password.

A password will be e-mailed to you.

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

  • Publications
  • Our Methods
  • Short Reads
  • Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

How Pew Research Center will report on generations moving forward

Journalists, researchers and the public often look at society through the lens of generation, using terms like Millennial or Gen Z to describe groups of similarly aged people. This approach can help readers see themselves in the data and assess where we are and where we’re headed as a country.

Pew Research Center has been at the forefront of generational research over the years, telling the story of Millennials as they came of age politically and as they moved more firmly into adult life . In recent years, we’ve also been eager to learn about Gen Z as the leading edge of this generation moves into adulthood.

But generational research has become a crowded arena. The field has been flooded with content that’s often sold as research but is more like clickbait or marketing mythology. There’s also been a growing chorus of criticism about generational research and generational labels in particular.

Recently, as we were preparing to embark on a major research project related to Gen Z, we decided to take a step back and consider how we can study generations in a way that aligns with our values of accuracy, rigor and providing a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue.

A typical generation spans 15 to 18 years. As many critics of generational research point out, there is great diversity of thought, experience and behavior within generations.

We set out on a yearlong process of assessing the landscape of generational research. We spoke with experts from outside Pew Research Center, including those who have been publicly critical of our generational analysis, to get their take on the pros and cons of this type of work. We invested in methodological testing to determine whether we could compare findings from our earlier telephone surveys to the online ones we’re conducting now. And we experimented with higher-level statistical analyses that would allow us to isolate the effect of generation.

What emerged from this process was a set of clear guidelines that will help frame our approach going forward. Many of these are principles we’ve always adhered to , but others will require us to change the way we’ve been doing things in recent years.

Here’s a short overview of how we’ll approach generational research in the future:

We’ll only do generational analysis when we have historical data that allows us to compare generations at similar stages of life. When comparing generations, it’s crucial to control for age. In other words, researchers need to look at each generation or age cohort at a similar point in the life cycle. (“Age cohort” is a fancy way of referring to a group of people who were born around the same time.)

When doing this kind of research, the question isn’t whether young adults today are different from middle-aged or older adults today. The question is whether young adults today are different from young adults at some specific point in the past.

To answer this question, it’s necessary to have data that’s been collected over a considerable amount of time – think decades. Standard surveys don’t allow for this type of analysis. We can look at differences across age groups, but we can’t compare age groups over time.

Another complication is that the surveys we conducted 20 or 30 years ago aren’t usually comparable enough to the surveys we’re doing today. Our earlier surveys were done over the phone, and we’ve since transitioned to our nationally representative online survey panel , the American Trends Panel . Our internal testing showed that on many topics, respondents answer questions differently depending on the way they’re being interviewed. So we can’t use most of our surveys from the late 1980s and early 2000s to compare Gen Z with Millennials and Gen Xers at a similar stage of life.

This means that most generational analysis we do will use datasets that have employed similar methodologies over a long period of time, such as surveys from the U.S. Census Bureau. A good example is our 2020 report on Millennial families , which used census data going back to the late 1960s. The report showed that Millennials are marrying and forming families at a much different pace than the generations that came before them.

Even when we have historical data, we will attempt to control for other factors beyond age in making generational comparisons. If we accept that there are real differences across generations, we’re basically saying that people who were born around the same time share certain attitudes or beliefs – and that their views have been influenced by external forces that uniquely shaped them during their formative years. Those forces may have been social changes, economic circumstances, technological advances or political movements.

When we see that younger adults have different views than their older counterparts, it may be driven by their demographic traits rather than the fact that they belong to a particular generation.

The tricky part is isolating those forces from events or circumstances that have affected all age groups, not just one generation. These are often called “period effects.” An example of a period effect is the Watergate scandal, which drove down trust in government among all age groups. Differences in trust across age groups in the wake of Watergate shouldn’t be attributed to the outsize impact that event had on one age group or another, because the change occurred across the board.

Changing demographics also may play a role in patterns that might at first seem like generational differences. We know that the United States has become more racially and ethnically diverse in recent decades, and that race and ethnicity are linked with certain key social and political views. When we see that younger adults have different views than their older counterparts, it may be driven by their demographic traits rather than the fact that they belong to a particular generation.

Controlling for these factors can involve complicated statistical analysis that helps determine whether the differences we see across age groups are indeed due to generation or not. This additional step adds rigor to the process. Unfortunately, it’s often absent from current discussions about Gen Z, Millennials and other generations.

When we can’t do generational analysis, we still see value in looking at differences by age and will do so where it makes sense. Age is one of the most common predictors of differences in attitudes and behaviors. And even if age gaps aren’t rooted in generational differences, they can still be illuminating. They help us understand how people across the age spectrum are responding to key trends, technological breakthroughs and historical events.

Each stage of life comes with a unique set of experiences. Young adults are often at the leading edge of changing attitudes on emerging social trends. Take views on same-sex marriage , for example, or attitudes about gender identity .

Many middle-aged adults, in turn, face the challenge of raising children while also providing care and support to their aging parents. And older adults have their own obstacles and opportunities. All of these stories – rooted in the life cycle, not in generations – are important and compelling, and we can tell them by analyzing our surveys at any given point in time.

When we do have the data to study groups of similarly aged people over time, we won’t always default to using the standard generational definitions and labels. While generational labels are simple and catchy, there are other ways to analyze age cohorts. For example, some observers have suggested grouping people by the decade in which they were born. This would create narrower cohorts in which the members may share more in common. People could also be grouped relative to their age during key historical events (such as the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic) or technological innovations (like the invention of the iPhone).

By choosing not to use the standard generational labels when they’re not appropriate, we can avoid reinforcing harmful stereotypes or oversimplifying people’s complex lived experiences.

Existing generational definitions also may be too broad and arbitrary to capture differences that exist among narrower cohorts. A typical generation spans 15 to 18 years. As many critics of generational research point out, there is great diversity of thought, experience and behavior within generations. The key is to pick a lens that’s most appropriate for the research question that’s being studied. If we’re looking at political views and how they’ve shifted over time, for example, we might group people together according to the first presidential election in which they were eligible to vote.

With these considerations in mind, our audiences should not expect to see a lot of new research coming out of Pew Research Center that uses the generational lens. We’ll only talk about generations when it adds value, advances important national debates and highlights meaningful societal trends.

  • Age & Generations
  • Demographic Research
  • Generation X
  • Generation Z
  • Generations
  • Greatest Generation
  • Methodological Research
  • Millennials
  • Silent Generation

Portrait photo of staff

How Teens and Parents Approach Screen Time

Who are you the art and science of measuring identity, u.s. centenarian population is projected to quadruple over the next 30 years, older workers are growing in number and earning higher wages, teens, social media and technology 2023, most popular.

1615 L St. NW, Suite 800 Washington, DC 20036 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 |  Media Inquiries

Research Topics

  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
  • Economy & Work
  • Family & Relationships
  • Gender & LGBTQ
  • Immigration & Migration
  • International Affairs
  • Internet & Technology
  • News Habits & Media
  • Non-U.S. Governments
  • Other Topics
  • Politics & Policy
  • Race & Ethnicity
  • Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER  Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of  The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Copyright 2024 Pew Research Center

Terms & Conditions

Privacy Policy

Cookie Settings

Reprints, Permissions & Use Policy

MCQs [2024]

Engineering interview questions, Mcqs, Objective Questions,Class Notes,Seminor topics,Lab Viva Pdf free download. CIVIL | Mechanical | CSE | EEE | ECE | IT | Chemical Online Quiz Tests for Freshers.

[pdf notes] sample essay on the uses and abuses of science [latest].

Science has been defined as a systematized body of knowledge. It is neither good nor bad in itself. It is the use of science that makes it good or bad. Man may use it for his welfare as well as for warfare. It is a blessing in peace and curse in war.

Nyumak için kullanılacak nefret kalite, nefret kalitesi çok daha uzun. Précautions : dapoxetine peut aider la personne en situation d'urgence à prendre des démarches de réparation mais elle ne peut prévenir une infection https://grahamclarkphoto.com/review-canon-eos-6d à base d'une bactérie pathogénique. Tadalafil is a vasodilator, an agonist of nitric oxide, which relaxes arteries, increasing blood flow to muscles, organs, and the brain.

Science is a blessing. By applying science man has, gained control over nature. Man is no longer a slave to his surroundings. He has conquered time and space. Buses, trains, aero planes enable man to travel more and more distance without any difficulty.

Even on the wide oceans he covers his voyage without any worry. Besides these, there are telephones and-telegraphs which enable man to keep contact with his friends and relatives without any difficulty. So it seems that the world has contracted.

In past, man had no control over the scorching summer and shivering winter. But now man is the master of environment. During summer he uses cooler, electric fans and during winter he uses room heaters to give him warmth.

Man has many enemies which he could not know in past. But now he has been successful in discovering bacteria, virus and other harmful germs. They are easily seen with microscope and are easily killed by medicines. X-rays, CT scans, Ultra Sound Tests, Laparoscopy are some of the recent developments in medical science with which terrible diseases at remote parts of human body can be detected.

Man, today, enjoys more comforts and luxuries than ever before. He has a much higher standard of living. Better irrigation facilities, improved farming tools, hybrid seeds, chemical fertilizers etc. have increased the agricultural output.

After hard work, man needs healthy recreation to relax him. Science has provided radio, cinema, television etc. for our entertainment. Due to the invention and spread of printing press, education has successfully- reached the common man.

Blessings of science are numerous. But this is only one side of the picture. In the past man has many times misused the knowledge of science. In big industries machines are used to increase production. But industrialization has given rise to competition, unemployment and capitalism. Machines have thrown thousands out of employment. Capitalism has caused class-struggle and exploitation of many people.

Man was safe in past. But now due to the invention of destructive weapons he is unsafe. If ever the Third Worlds War is fought, the entire civilization will come to an end. Science has reduced spiritualism in man and has converted him into a moral pigmy.

If we impartially look at the problems, then we will find that man is responsible for the blessings or curse of science. If science is used properly, then people will live peacefully.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

AI Index: State of AI in 13 Charts

In the new report, foundation models dominate, benchmarks fall, prices skyrocket, and on the global stage, the U.S. overshadows.

Illustration of bright lines intersecting on a dark background

This year’s AI Index — a 500-page report tracking 2023’s worldwide trends in AI — is out.

The index is an independent initiative at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI), led by the AI Index Steering Committee, an interdisciplinary group of experts from across academia and industry. This year’s report covers the rise of multimodal foundation models, major cash investments into generative AI, new performance benchmarks, shifting global opinions, and new major regulations.

Don’t have an afternoon to pore through the findings? Check out the high level here.

Pie chart showing 98 models were open-sourced in 2023

A Move Toward Open-Sourced

This past year, organizations released 149 foundation models, more than double the number released in 2022. Of these newly released models, 65.7% were open-source (meaning they can be freely used and modified by anyone), compared with only 44.4% in 2022 and 33.3% in 2021.

bar chart showing that closed models outperformed open models across tasks

But At a Cost of Performance?

Closed-source models still outperform their open-sourced counterparts. On 10 selected benchmarks, closed models achieved a median performance advantage of 24.2%, with differences ranging from as little as 4.0% on mathematical tasks like GSM8K to as much as 317.7% on agentic tasks like AgentBench.

Bar chart showing Google has more foundation models than any other company

Biggest Players

Industry dominates AI, especially in building and releasing foundation models. This past year Google edged out other industry players in releasing the most models, including Gemini and RT-2. In fact, since 2019, Google has led in releasing the most foundation models, with a total of 40, followed by OpenAI with 20. Academia trails industry: This past year, UC Berkeley released three models and Stanford two.

Line chart showing industry far outpaces academia and government in creating foundation models over the decade

Industry Dwarfs All

If you needed more striking evidence that corporate AI is the only player in the room right now, this should do it. In 2023, industry accounted for 72% of all new foundation models.

Chart showing the growing costs of training AI models

Prices Skyrocket

One of the reasons academia and government have been edged out of the AI race: the exponential increase in cost of training these giant models. Google’s Gemini Ultra cost an estimated $191 million worth of compute to train, while OpenAI’s GPT-4 cost an estimated $78 million. In comparison, in 2017, the original Transformer model, which introduced the architecture that underpins virtually every modern LLM, cost around $900.

Bar chart showing the united states produces by far the largest number of foundation models

What AI Race?

At least in terms of notable machine learning models, the United States vastly outpaced other countries in 2023, developing a total of 61 models in 2023. Since 2019, the U.S. has consistently led in originating the majority of notable models, followed by China and the UK.

Line chart showing that across many intellectual task categories, AI has exceeded human performance

Move Over, Human

As of 2023, AI has hit human-level performance on many significant AI benchmarks, from those testing reading comprehension to visual reasoning. Still, it falls just short on some benchmarks like competition-level math. Because AI has been blasting past so many standard benchmarks, AI scholars have had to create new and more difficult challenges. This year’s index also tracked several of these new benchmarks, including those for tasks in coding, advanced reasoning, and agentic behavior.

Bar chart showing a dip in overall private investment in AI, but a surge in generative AI investment

Private Investment Drops (But We See You, GenAI)

While AI private investment has steadily dropped since 2021, generative AI is gaining steam. In 2023, the sector attracted $25.2 billion, nearly ninefold the investment of 2022 and about 30 times the amount from 2019 (call it the ChatGPT effect). Generative AI accounted for over a quarter of all AI-related private investments in 2023.

Bar chart showing the united states overwhelming dwarfs other countries in private investment in AI

U.S. Wins $$ Race

And again, in 2023 the United States dominates in AI private investment. In 2023, the $67.2 billion invested in the U.S. was roughly 8.7 times greater than the amount invested in the next highest country, China, and 17.8 times the amount invested in the United Kingdom. That lineup looks the same when zooming out: Cumulatively since 2013, the United States leads investments at $335.2 billion, followed by China with $103.7 billion, and the United Kingdom at $22.3 billion.

Infographic showing 26% of businesses use AI for contact-center automation, and 23% use it for personalization

Where is Corporate Adoption?

More companies are implementing AI in some part of their business: In surveys, 55% of organizations said they were using AI in 2023, up from 50% in 2022 and 20% in 2017. Businesses report using AI to automate contact centers, personalize content, and acquire new customers. 

Bar chart showing 57% of people believe AI will change how they do their job in 5 years, and 36% believe AI will replace their jobs.

Younger and Wealthier People Worry About Jobs

Globally, most people expect AI to change their jobs, and more than a third expect AI to replace them. Younger generations — Gen Z and millennials — anticipate more substantial effects from AI compared with older generations like Gen X and baby boomers. Specifically, 66% of Gen Z compared with 46% of boomer respondents believe AI will significantly affect their current jobs. Meanwhile, individuals with higher incomes, more education, and decision-making roles foresee AI having a great impact on their employment.

Bar chart depicting the countries most nervous about AI; Australia at 69%, Great Britain at 65%, and Canada at 63% top the list

While the Commonwealth Worries About AI Products

When asked in a survey about whether AI products and services make you nervous, 69% of Aussies and 65% of Brits said yes. Japan is the least worried about their AI products at 23%.  

Line graph showing uptick in AI regulation in the united states since 2016; 25 policies passed in 2023

Regulation Rallies

More American regulatory agencies are passing regulations to protect citizens and govern the use of AI tools and data. For example, the Copyright Office and the Library of Congress passed copyright registration guidance concerning works that contained material generated by AI, while the Securities and Exchange Commission developed a cybersecurity risk management strategy, governance, and incident disclosure plan. The agencies to pass the most regulation were the Executive Office of the President and the Commerce Department. 

The AI Index was first created to track AI development. The index collaborates with such organizations as LinkedIn, Quid, McKinsey, Studyportals, the Schwartz Reisman Institute, and the International Federation of Robotics to gather the most current research and feature important insights on the AI ecosystem. 

More News Topics

IMAGES

  1. Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay

    essay on uses and abuses of science

  2. Essay on uses and abuses of science || Most important essay || Essay

    essay on uses and abuses of science

  3. Essay on uses and abuses of science

    essay on uses and abuses of science

  4. 795 Word Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science

    essay on uses and abuses of science

  5. Uses and Abuses of Science English Essay

    essay on uses and abuses of science

  6. Essay on Uses and abuses of science in 200 300 words

    essay on uses and abuses of science

VIDEO

  1. Write An Essay On "The Importance Of Scientific Education"

  2. Internet Urdu mazmoon

  3. Leisure it's uses and abuses

  4. | USES AND ABUSES OF MOBILE PHONE

  5. Uses and Abuses of Science Urdu Essay Writing

  6. Use And Abuse of Mobile Phone| Mobile Phone Essay in English

COMMENTS

  1. Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay

    The Uses And Abuses Of Science essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations. You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

  2. Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science

    Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science: This is the age of science. Science has changed entire world. It is not the same world that our ancestors lived in. If they were to return today, they would certainly not be able to recognise the place. Today we have electricity, telephones, TVs, medicines, computers and the Internet, cars, airplanes lazer ...

  3. Essay on Uses and abuses of science

    Abuses of science. Science has been a tremendous blessing to humanity. At the same time, it is a huge curse. It may be both harmful and beneficial. It has placed state-of-the-art weaponry and missile systems in the hands of humans, allowing them to wreak mass death and devastation in a distant location with the push of a button.

  4. The Use and Abuse of Science

    1 Introduction: The Misuse of Science. The claims of objectivity mean, as we have seen, that gaining knowledge is an essentially social phenomenon, pursued with a view to satisfying the demands of public scrutiny. And like other social phenomena, there is a moral dimension to this activity. More spectacular aspects of this are familiar enough.

  5. benefits of science essay with quotations

    This is a long English essay on the uses and abuses of science. This essay explains the benefits of science and technology with quotations. The uses of science has emerged as both merits and demerits. This essay is for 2nd year students for college level.

  6. Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science

    No one claims for certain that science is complete happiness or an impending curse. However, the latest triumphs and victories of science need to be properly utilized, otherwise, they can bring certain death and destruction to the human race. An essay on Uses and Abuses of Science in 795 words. Use this great essay as a model and write your own ...

  7. Abusing science

    The better use of time and resources is to determine where these leaders are attempting to influence policies—educational, political, legal—and to meet the battle there. The law, for example, clearly is on the side of science, 20 and one should use it to blunt attempts to insert religious dogma into the science curriculum.

  8. Essay On Uses and Abuses of Science

    Essay On Uses and Abuses of Science. Use of science brought about a great change: At the dawn of civilization man developed a scientific outlook. With the help of science he made observation and experiment, though they were crude at first. he discovered the relationship between a cause and its effect. He discovered some secrets of nature.

  9. The use and abuse of science and technology: rethinking dual-use

    It is a process of indoctrinating students and researchers into the current dominant narrative of biosecurity governance. The duality, in its general form, might then be considered as a balancing not of military and civil applications of science and technology, but as balancing 'use' and 'abuse'. Normalising researchers into a ...

  10. (PDF) The Use and Abuse of Science

    The Use and Abuse of Science Damaris Rosado, Nathan Castro, Luis Diaz, and Tania Guardado University of Texas at El Paso El Paso, Texas, USA 1 Introduction In this article you will learn of the abuses in science that come from three sources: politics, media, and industry. Examples of both proper and improper uses of science are given within ...

  11. Essay on Uses and abuses of science in 200

    Essay on Uses and Abuse of science: We are living in the age of science. Scientific inventions have revolutionized human life. They have brought about remarkable changes in our ways of living and make the world a better and happier place for us. Science has made our domestic life comfortable. Science has discovered many useful things.

  12. Uses and abuses of Science

    Science being a mother of invention has created a new world with its bloodless revolution. Man has invented machines in countless number for the benefits and comforts of a human being. Science has brought a marvelous revolution in the modern world. All progress of a country depends upon the progress in science. Science has both merits and demerits.

  13. Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay

    The Uses And Abuses Of Science essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations. You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

  14. Sample essay on the uses and abuses of Science

    Sample essay on the uses and abuses of Science. Science has been defined as a systematized body of knowledge. It is neither good nor bad in itself. It is the use of science that makes it good or bad. Man may use it for his welfare as well as for warfare. It is a blessing in peace and curse in war.

  15. Essay on Science is a Blessing or Curse with Quotations for Students

    As far as the question of science is a blessing or curse is concerned, it is obvious that everything has its uses and abuses. Science can be used both as a curse or a blessing. It totally depends on the human beings how they prefer to use it. The usage of these gifts of science for a positive aim will surely give sweet results but its negative ...

  16. Field Experiments and Their Critics

    social science; Field Experiments and Their Critics; ... Essays on the Uses and Abuses of Experimentation in the Social Sciences. Edited by Dawn Langan Teele. Series: The Institution for Social and Policy Studies. Course Book. Request Print Exam/Desk Copy; Request eBook Exam Copy; 280 Pages, 6.12 x 9.25 x 0.62 in, 1 b-w illus.

  17. Uses and Abuses of Science

    Home Essay Writing Uses and Abuses of Science. Uses and Abuses of Science. Essay Writing, According to Newton's third law "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." So Science can be a blessing and a curse at the same time. Science can be the greatest of the blessings and the worst of the curses.

  18. Uses and Abuses of Modern Science Free Essay Example

    Uses and Abuses of Modern Science. Categories: Abuse Science Wonder. Download. Essay, Pages 2 (454 words) Views. 3111. Since the dawn of civilization, science or systematic study is behind step-by-step progress to the present position. Science has made a rapid stride in the 20th century. From a pin to rocket, we can see the marvels of science.

  19. Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science.

    Radio and telecommunications, X-Ray and electricity, rotary and railways are all the works of science. So at present the uses of science are many and varied. Abuses of science: Modern man has begun to abuse his scientific knowledge, invention of atom bomb is the burning example of it.

  20. SOLUTION: Uses and abuses of science essay

    Uses and Abuses of Science Essay Science is a powerful tool that has transformed the world in countless ways. It has led to advancements in medicine, technology, and agriculture, among other fields. However, science can also be misused or abused, leading to negative consequences for individuals and society as a whole. ...

  21. Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay

    The Uses And Abuses Of Science essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations. You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

  22. Essay on uses and abuses of science

    Essay on uses and abuses of science If you like my video don't forget to like, share and subscribe Thankyou😊

  23. How Pew Research Center will report on generations moving forward

    So we can't use most of our surveys from the late 1980s and early 2000s to compare Gen Z with Millennials and Gen Xers at a similar stage of life. This means that most generational analysis we do will use datasets that have employed similar methodologies over a long period of time, such as surveys from the U.S. Census Bureau.

  24. [PDF Notes] Sample essay on the uses and abuses of Science [Latest]

    It is the use of science that makes it good or bad. Man may use it for his welfare as well as for warfare. It is a blessing in peace and curse in war. Science is a blessing. By applying science man has, gained control over nature. Man is no longer a slave to his surroundings. He has conquered time and space.

  25. AI Index: State of AI in 13 Charts

    While AI private investment has steadily dropped since 2021, generative AI is gaining steam. In 2023, the sector attracted $25.2 billion, nearly ninefold the investment of 2022 and about 30 times the amount from 2019 (call it the ChatGPT effect). Generative AI accounted for over a quarter of all AI-related private investments in 2023.