2011 RI GP Promo Exam

! 2011_ Year 5 Gener~ll Paper Promotion Examination The famously morose philosopher Thomas Hobbes is known for giving the following description of life on earth: "nasty, brutish ahd short." In that context, this description may actually have an uncomfortable modicum of truth ~- in that age, without the advances civilisation embraces today, it could be quite valid to sound the !death knell for human civilisation. But let us glance into the past. and notice all the inventions and innovations that have heralded a new age - the Gutenberg press, the wheel, modem medicine. I felvently believe that science and technology, and the promise they hold, give us hope for the future. I I Science and technology in this !essay, will refer to innovations or advances in our knowledge of the human body and life on ~arth. The ultimate purpose of science has always been human improvements, and coupled wit~ technology, they guarantee the survival and prosperity of the human race. Of course, gazing into the crystal ball is futile and fruitless, so it is best we extrapolate what the future brings by examini\lg the past and the present, and identifying trends. ! Some detractors - sceptics, luc/dites, 'unenlightened beings' - hold a very pessimistic view of science and technology, believi~g that it is possible for the hubris of scientists to cause us to cross the boundary. Science and technology, when in the hands of unscrupulous characters, are potent and can be manipulated ]to cause greater harm to human society, and this makes one apprehensive about their impact A whole panoply of examples point towards this. Genetically modified food, for instance, broiJght about the Green Revolution, and many perceived it as a panacea for food shortages and I the abject poverty of the Third World. It could have been that But because the technology dev<~loped by multinational giant Monsanto was undertaken with the sole aim to increase its profits a1d gain, it has only led to ruin. They charged high prices for such high yield varieties, and these se<,3ds were in fact specially engineered to only be planted once {i.e. seeds from the plant produced c~>uld not be replanted), sending farmers back to the market place to line the pockets of the MNC. 1 Such exploitation does not bode well for the future of science. Science has also been used as 9n excuse to lead to inhumane cruelty. The Angel of Death, Nazi scientist Josef Mengele, is notor'ious for having carried out deviant experiments on twins. such as cutting off their arms and sew;ng them together. This fear of cruelty resulting from science has touched the hearts of the commdn man as seen from the spate of dystopian movies. such as The I Island, which warns against a tecl,mology that harvests organs, that feeds on this fear. I However. to discount the promise of science and technology on that basis is myopic. These are exceptions. and the fact that wei feel revulsion and condemn them. demonstrates that