Importance of Science Essay

One of my old, fairly innocuous posts has been climbing up the popularity lists: The Importance of Science in Our Lives. It’s just a link to an article online with a little commentary. I see on my statistics pages that a lot of people arrive using google searches of â€Å"Importance of Science.† I wonder if this is a common school assignment for students, e.g., â€Å"Write about the importance of science in the modern world† or some other similar variation, and then off they go to google to get their answers rather than thinking for themselves. Maybe that’s too cynical. Anyway, I have been intending to follow up with some more specific and simply worded reasons that science is important to not just me (e.g., my income), but to our civilization today. Science is important because†¦ 1. †¦we don’t have to take someone’s word for something, we can test their claims. 2. †¦horrible diseases can be cured, or prevented entirely, and it can still provide hope for those with as-yet-incurable diseases. 3. †¦people who love each other can talk to each other whenever they want no matter how far apart they are in the world, and can be together the next day. 4. †¦science can show us what has caused mass extinctions and point the way to preventing similar catastrophes in the future. 5. †¦science can make us feel big and special for understanding the age of the Earth, the nature of stars, and the size of the universe, even if those things dwarf us. 6. †¦science saves lives. 7. †¦it has helped us to no longer need to worry about personal survival as our top priority, giving us more time for love, laughter, singing, and dancing. 8. †¦whenever one problem is solved another two rear up to take its place, so the need for science will never go obsolete. 9. †¦science gives us superpowers, like looking across the universe, seeing atoms, flying across the Earth or to the moon, moving mountains, and harnessing the energy of the sun. 10. †¦science, in the long run, is the only reliable way to figure things out in a world that is so seldom fair and impartial. Well, those are ten of mine. I could elaborate or further justify each of these, but for now I will leave these here to ferment some more. There’s a darker version of this list that would talk about guns, nuclear bombs, and more, but I’ll pass on that for now. Violence isn’t nice, but it surely is important. Science is everywhere in today’s world. It is part of our daily lives, from cooking and gardening, to recycling and comprehending the daily weather report, to reading a map and using a computer. Advances in technology and science are transforming our world at an incredible pace, and our children’s future will surely be filled with leaps in technology we can only imagine. Being â€Å"science literate† will no longer be just an advantage but an absolute necessity. We can’t escape from the significance of science in our world. The present era is the era of science. Science has undoubtedly done a great service to mankind. Man, a rational being, has been curious to explore mysteries of nature and this led to many discoveries being made in various part of the world. But he is never satisfied with the acquired knowledge and is always keen to unravelle mysteries of the universe. He has conquered the land and air. His incredible lust for knowledge has revolutionise d human life and raised the standard of life. He was able to invent innumerable ways of making his life comfortable and happy. Every sphere of life has been revolutionised by science. There have been innumerable inventions. One of the greatest inventions is the invention of medicines. There has been a series of tests carried out using animals as subjects and various medicines have been tried out on these animals to check their efficacy. Many fatal diseases can now be cured because we have the drug to fight those diseases. It has reduced the rate of infant mortality and increased the life span. Before these inventions millions of people died for lack of medical care. Science has given us many machines that have made our lives very comfortable. Buses, cars, sewing machines, mixes, grinders, etc. are all machines that are used every day by us and the discovery of electricity has made it possible for us to change night into day and summer into a comfortable cool season It is now easy to cultivate fields as we have tractors. New forms of irrigation are now being employed. It is easier to protect the crops because of the use of various chemicals and pesticides. Even mosquitoes can be driven away because of the discoveries made in science. It has enabled man to entertain himself in many ways. TV, radio, video and the cinema are all popular means of entertainment. Besides entertainment they educate the masses. Today the computer has made life even more easy for us. The press, the means of communication, etc. have all improved because of science and its gifts to us. Before understanding the importance of science and technology, it is important for us to understand that science and technology are closely associated with our lives. They are closely linked aspects of society and the studies and developments in both of science and technology are essential for the overall progress of society. Why is technology so important? How does scientific development affect society? Let us find out.Scientific research comprises a wide variety of fields ranging from the study of different branches of science to relatively advanced fields like space exploration, human genetics and cloning. Scientific study attempts to explore and understand the working of the physical world. It tries to analyze the occurrences in nature and gain knowledge about nature through experimentation. As scientific research aims at gaining knowledge of the complexities of nature, it is important for the progress of mankind. The seemingly impossible feats have been made possible, thanks to the scientific research.Natural sciences deal with the study of nature and human life. The studies of natural and artificial sciences reveal the relationship between nature and human life. Research in science has paved a path to many brilliant inventions and discoveries.When it comes to science and technology, we cannot forget the automobile and the transport industries that have grown tremendously on account of the developments in science and engineering. Technological advancements have driven the developments in the different modes of transport. Bicycles have transformed into scooters and sport bikes. Four and six wheeled vehicles have started running on the roads, thanks to the advancing technology. The developments in air transport have winged the common man to soar high!The importance of technology lies in the benefits of technology on society. The positive effects of technology on society are many. The advancements in technology have revolutionized human life. It has provided a great impetus to the computer and the telecommunication industry. The developments in the communication technology have made the world a smaller place. The Internet serving as an excellent communication platform has made the world flat!The World Wide Web has proved being an enormous information base, from which information can be retrieved by the means of search engines. Information from all around the world is housed on the web. Thanks to the development of the web technology, the information can be stored in an organized manner and relevant information can be retrieved on supplying search strings to the web search engines.Digitization of information has been a major breakthrough in the world of information technology. It has made possible the compaction of information, which in turn allows efficient information storage.The most important benefit of science has been the luxury it has brought to daily life. The mechanization of industrial processes has reduced human effort. Household appliances that are in the daily use of the common man are a result of scientific research. Machines have replaced human beings in monotonous and risk-bearing tasks. Scientific discoveries have made life easy.Read more at Buzzle: http://www.buzzle.com/articles/importance-of-science-and-technology.html In every generation and in every century there always exist a number of people, who are afraid of everything that is related to possible changes. In various epochs they are called differently: luddites, anti-globalists, ecologists and so on; but their nature is always the same. They hate progress and strive to preserve the status quo without seemingly realizing the fact that the same very kind of people hated progress and strived to retain the status quo a hundred years ago, and now they use all the things that were denounced by their spiritual ancestors. In their blogs on the Internet they write about immoral scientists, who conduct dangerous experiments; but they do not realize that they actually use the product of the very science they hate in order to convey their thought to the similarly-minded. Science always has to fight against heavy odds, for it always tries to show how useful something may be to people who don’t want to listen, knowing that the very moment they will be persuaded, they will use a yet another product of science against what has created it. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that a scientist is the hero of modern day, and not a politician or a social activist. Science makes our life possible – today a human being cannot imagine his or her life without all the many thousands of little and big things, created by science in the course of millennia. And the people who denounce it for meddling with the things that we do not understand, just don’t see that there is no way to study a thing that you don’t understand without, well, studying it. Of course, science always prevails in the end, for life is stronger than death. But it is really embarrassing to see how hard it has to fight. 2013-02-19T14:25:54start intext order & inq uiry code Science and technology provide people with the knowledge and tools to understand and address many of the challenges. Students must be provided with opportunities to access, understand, and evaluate current information and tools related to science and technology if they are to be ready to live in a 21st century global society. The study of science and technology includes both processes and bodies of knowledge. Scientific processes are the ways scientists investigate and communicate about the natural world. The scientific body of knowledge includes concepts, principles, facts, laws, and theories about the way the world around us works. Technology includes the technological design process and the body of knowledge related to the study of tools and the effect of technology on society. Science and technology merge in the pursuit of knowledge and solutions to problems that require the application of scientific understanding and product design. Solving technological problems demands scientific knowledge while modern technologies make it possible to discover new scientific knowledge. In a world shaped by science and technology, it is important for students to learn how science and technology connect with the demands of society and the knowledge of all content areas. It is equally important that students are provi ded with learning experiences that integrate tools, knowledge, and processes of science and technology. The Science and Technology Standards outline the essential understandings of these disciplines. Standard A describes four themes that serve as a broad scaffold for understanding and organizing student understanding of the content and processes of science and technology. Standard B describes the processes of scientific inquiry and technological design. As a complement to the expectations of inquiry and design outlined in Standard B, Standard C describes the enterprises of science and technology and the connection to society. Standards D and E have performance indicators that encompass the subject matter conventionally referred to as life, physical, and earth and space science. It is essential that classroom instruction integrate the processes and ideas of Standards A, B, and C with the knowledge of Standards D and E, rather than teach them separately. Instruction should support students in asking questions and making inquiries to help them, understand and solve problems that require t he integration of knowledge and processes in authentic contexts. Unifying Themes – The proposed revised standards begin with a focus on four themes of science and technology: systems, models, and constancy and change, and scale. These themes provide teachers and students with a scaffold on which to organize the details of the standards. National standards documents identify these themes as critical knowledge for students in the 21st century. The Skills of Scientific Inquiry and Technological Design Process – The Science and Technology Standards define both the student skills of scientific inquiry and the student skills of technological design. The inclusion of scientific inquiry, the development of a coherent section on technological design and the inclusion of a standard on scientific and technological enterprise highlight the importance of developing student understanding of the unique characteristics of and relationships between science and technology. The scientific and technological enterprise standard outlines key understanding s about the relationships among science, technology and society and underscores the role of citizens in the decision-making process related to science and technology. Science is our power as human beings to use our wisdom and make decisions. When a loved one is dying of cancer, what would you do? Would you not do anything possible to try to help them? Here is where science has a role in our lives; when we want to do something otherwise difficult or impossible. Though the ways of learning science has changed over the years from solely thinking logically to reading classics to experimenting, the way scientific knowledge is used has not been changed. When there is an epidemic, medicine is used to carry out man’s will to cure it. When the Egyptian pyramids were to be built, architecture came into use. Yet science is not used only for such needful or elaborate situations. They also appear in our daily lives. We know it is important to wash ourselves regularly, only for biology. The Wright brothers were able to invent the airplane because they knew hot air rises, and since then, we have been able to use their technology to travel great distances in short periods of time. We humans would be so impotent without science. Science is our knowledge of the universe. It is natural to have for a being who thinks. If we did not have science, it would mean we are plain animals motivated purely by instinct. Our definition of â€Å"life† as a human would not exist. Great are the blessings of science. However, our wisdom is not complete, and can lead us to do wrong. Thereupon, science can be a curse. We have changed the passenger airplane into a fighter. Cameras for keeping memories spy on people. Cell phones for conversations are used to bully kids around, and even explode trains. Our greed, hatred, fear, wickedness, and stupidity have produced terrible uses of what our scientific knowledge has put together. As we all know from Spiderman, â€Å"With great power comes great responsibility.† Science gives us options to do or not to do. Though each option has its consequences, it is a distinct strength which evidently separates us from animals. How we use it will greatly influence the lives of each one of us.