THE ROLE OF SCIENCE

Modern science and technology have changed our lives in many dramatic ways. Airplanes, automobiles, communications satellites, computers, plastics, and television are only a few of the scientific and technological inventions that have transformed human life. Research by nuclear physicists has led to the development of nuclear energy as a source of power. The development of antibiotics and other new drugs has helped control many infectious diseases. Studies in anatomy and physiology have led to amazing new surgical techniques and to the invention of lifesaving machines that can do the work of such organs as the lungs, kidneys, and heart.

Although scientific and technological achievements have benefited us in numerous ways, they have also created serious problems. The rapid growth of industrial technology, for instance, has resulted in such grave side effects as environmental pollution and fuel shortages. Breakthroughs in nuclear research have led to the development of weapons of mass destruction. Some people fear that advanced biological research will produce new disease-causing bacteria or viruses that resist drugs. People are also concerned that computerized information systems may destroy personal privacy.

The harmful effects of some technological applications of science have led some people to question the value of scientific research. But science itself is neither good nor bad. The uses that businesses, governments, and individuals choose to make use of scientific knowledge determine whether that knowledge will help or harm society.

Science has greatly affected the way we view ourselves and the world around us. The ancient Greeks were among the first peoples to begin to use systematic observation and reasoning to analyze natural happenings. As scientific thinking gradually developed, nature came to be seen less and less as the product of mysterious spiritual forces. Instead, people began to feel that nature could be understood and even controlled through science.

Science in the 20-th century. Revolutionary advances in physics marked the beginning of the 1900s as scientists continued to challenge existing ideas. In 1905, German physicist, Albert Einstein, showed that light may be regarded as consisting of individual energy units. He later suggested that these units are particles, now called photons. That same year, Einstein published his special theory of relativity. His theory revised many of the ideas of Newtonian physics and offered scientists new ways of thinking about space and time. In 1911, the New Zealand-born physicist Ernest Rutherford theorized that the mass of an atom is concentrated in a tiny nucleus, which is surrounded by electrons traveling at tremendous speeds. Niels Bohr, a Danish physicist, proposed a description of electron structure. Chemists used the new information about atoms to improve their ideas about chemical bonds. They produced many new compounds and developed a variety of plastics and synthetic fibers.

In the biological sciences, a number of physician-scientists showed the importance of vitamins in the human diet. The German physician and chemist Paul Ehrlich founded the field of chemotherapy, in which diseases are treated with chemicals. In 1928, Alexander Fleming, a British bacteriologist, discovered penicillin, the first of many antibiotics.

The work of numerous scientists began to establish the importance of genetics as a separate branch of biology. About 1901, a Dutch scientist named Hugo de Vries extensively described mutations - changes in hereditary material of cells. About 1910, Thomas Hunt Morgan, an American biologist, and his associates proved that genes are the units of heredity and that genes are arranged in an exact order along the length of cell structures called chromosomes.

Science continued to make great strides in all fields during the mid-1900s. The Italian-born physicist Enrico Fermi and his co-worker achieved the first controlled nuclear chain reaction in 1942 at the University of Chicago. Intensive research during World War (1939-1945) led to the use of nuclear energy in weapons.

Physicists discovered new elementary particles in the mid-1900s. They also established the existence of antiparticles, which have electric charges or other properties that are the reverse of ordinary atomic particles. Chemists expanded the periodic table through the creation of new radioactive elements.

The space age began in 1957, when the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite to circle the earth. In 1969, two U.S. astronauts became the first human beings to walk on the moon. Astronomers also greatly expanded their knowledge of the size, structure, and history of the universe with the use of radio telescopes to collect and measure radio waves given off by objects in space. Using radio telescopes, astronomers discovered pulsars, quasars, and other previously unknown objects in space. Radio astronomers also found evidence to support the theory that the universe began with an explosion called the big bang.

Science also made important contributions to technology during the mid-l900s. Physicists invented the transistor, which revolutionized the electronics industry and enabled manufacturers to produce portable battery-powered radios and TV sets, pocket-sized calculators, and high-speed computers. Similarly, the invention of lasers promised great advances in communications, electronics, and medicine.

Recent developments. In the late 1900s, science began to advance faster than ever before. This progress was reflected by the many discoveries made each year, by the thousands of scientists involved in research, and by the vast sums of money spent on scientific work. As the number of scientists grew, cooperation among them became increasingly important. Many achievements resulted from scientists working in research teams. Hundreds of scientific journals, professional societies, and computerized information systems enabled scientists to exchange information quickly and easily. Computer simulations helped scientists perform experiments and test their theories. New telescopes, satellites, orbiting observatories, and space probes gave astronomers information about distant reaches of the Universe.

In 2000, scientists announced that they had analyzed essentially all the chemical instructions, encoded in DNA, that control heredity in human beings. One complete set of those instructions is called a genome.

The science of today and tomorrow promises to continue to improve our understanding of the universe and to give us ever greater control over nature. But at the same time, serious debates have arisen over such science-related issues as whether it is moral to interfere in the genetic makeup of human beings or to use lasers for destructive purposes. In the future, scientists and nonscientists alike will have an increasing responsibility to ensure that the best possible uses are made of knowledge from scientific research.

 

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Task 5