Second proposing speech
Looking over the world’s breaking discoveries, how many of them are not discovered accidentally while trying to understand a totally different phenomenon or to find an answer to the problems unsolved? Luigi Galvani observed an electrical circuit while he was investigating nerves in frog legs in 1791; several experimenters discovered artificial sweeteners while trying to create something else; The discovery of two planets, Uranus and Pluto were accidental as were the discovery of the elements iodine and helium, etc. There are too many accidental scientific discoveries through the ages. Although morality tempts to regulate the objective of science researches and ways of research, the results of scientific researches can hardly be regulated. […]
Looking over the world’s breaking discoveries, how many of them are not discovered accidentally while trying to understand a totally different phenomenon or to find an answer to the problems unsolved? Luigi Galvani observed an electrical circuit while he was investigating nerves in frog legs in 1791; several experimenters discovered artificial sweeteners while trying to create something else; The discovery of two planets, Uranus and Pluto were accidental as were the discovery of the elements iodine and helium, etc. There are too many accidental scientific discoveries through the ages. Although morality tempts to regulate the objective of science researches and ways of research, the results of scientific researches can hardly be regulated. […]
by CS
Second opposing speech
Science plays an important and vital role in our lives when it comes to morality, people say science is neutral but that’s not quite true. Of course, the Nuclear power plants, the internet all these things have brought inestimable conveniences to our daily life, but in the same time, they brought many moral issues as well, the internet and the computer make us less distant with our friends and families no matter in which corner of the world, but it also takes us away from the real life and just put us into a virtuel black hole, and it also causes some addictions we've never faced before. Even if the consequences are unfathomable when all these things disappear tomorrow , you can't deny the fact that all those scientific developments are related and interacted with the morality. [...]
Science plays an important and vital role in our lives when it comes to morality, people say science is neutral but that’s not quite true. Of course, the Nuclear power plants, the internet all these things have brought inestimable conveniences to our daily life, but in the same time, they brought many moral issues as well, the internet and the computer make us less distant with our friends and families no matter in which corner of the world, but it also takes us away from the real life and just put us into a virtuel black hole, and it also causes some addictions we've never faced before. Even if the consequences are unfathomable when all these things disappear tomorrow , you can't deny the fact that all those scientific developments are related and interacted with the morality. [...]
by ZQ
Second proposing speech
Honorable judges, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to our debate on the science and morality.
Honorable judges, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to our debate on the science and morality.
In this second round, I would like to refer to some arguments proposed by the opposing team which we do not totally agree and then bring you into some deeper thoughts of the relation between science and morality.
We tend to see no fault in the idea raised by the opposing team that society defines the realm of science and bounds scientific creativity, but is it the same case in reality?
Looking over the world’s breaking discoveries, how many of them are not discovered accidentally while trying to understand a totally different phenomenon or to find an answer to the problems unsolved? Luigi Galvani observed an electrical circuit while he was investigating nerves in frog legs in 1791; several experimenters discovered artificial sweeteners while trying to create something else; The discovery of two planets, Uranus and Pluto were accidental as were the discovery of the elements iodine and helium, etc. There are too many accidental scientific discoveries through the ages. Although morality tempts to regulate the objective of science researches and ways of research, the results of scientific researches can hardly be regulated.
As for the claim of the necessity that science needs to be regulated, the arguments presented by the opposition are by no means sufficient enough to back up. Necessity supposes reasons and means. Not to say that science cannot be regulated; it doesn’t even make sense to do so. The heliocentricity proposed by Copernicus is a revolution of the geocentric system and a tremendous progress of science; but from the moral point of view from Medieval Europe, it violated the doctrine of the "Bible". This illustrates how these inadequate moral standards have greatly hindered the progress of science. Since the revolution of ethics cannot always keep up with the pace of science, tragedies of science will occur frequently once regulated with the ethics of the time.
About the links between science and morality, several philosophers have demonstrated to us that they actually belong to two different domains, which have different objectives and social effects. German philosopher Immanuel Kant considered that the kingdom of Science and that of justice don’t cross. David Hume has also divided knowledge and science into "knowledge of the facts ","the value of knowledge “and "Physical Science”, "spiritual science ". He thinks that moral values come from the resistance to suffering and the pursuit of happiness, thus making reasoning powerless facing moral values.
How does it come then, that in our current world, morality tries frequently to alter the course of science and hinder its progress?
In fact, just as the opposition beautifully puts it, morality is imposed by society. But it is a value of the society’s inertia, born from its womb, from its very innate and secret fear, that of change. As science keeps its trail in the pursuit of truth and discovery, humans are facing a misty and unknown future. What a terrifying discovery it was, when knowing that Earth was no longer the center of the Universe! And how dreadful it must have been, when it was understood that living species were not created by god, but could be “built” out of a petri dish! By whatever name we call it, morality, religion or ethics, these are but different manifestations of the same fear we have to the unknown.
Still, fully aware that we can never neglect human’s fear, believing in these values can have a comforting effect on our human souls, thus making it human nature to remain the same when facing a stable and cheerful state. However, as science continues its progress, new values and notions of this fear will appear. Nevertheless, science and morality still exist to be two very independent domains that randomly cross each other before continuing to develop in their own ways, like two parallels.
CS
Second opposing speech
Science plays an important and vital role in our lives when it comes to morality, people say science is neutral but that’s not quite true. Of course, the Nuclear power plants, the internet all these things have brought inestimable conveniences to our daily life, but in the same time, they brought many moral issues as well, the internet and the computer make us less distant with our friends and families no matter in which corner of the world, but it also takes us away from the real life and just put us into a virtuel black hole, and it also causes some addictions we've never faced before. Even if the consequences are unfathomable when all these things disappear tomorrow , you can't deny the fact that all those scientific developments are related and interacted with the morality.
Science plays an important and vital role in our lives when it comes to morality, people say science is neutral but that’s not quite true. Of course, the Nuclear power plants, the internet all these things have brought inestimable conveniences to our daily life, but in the same time, they brought many moral issues as well, the internet and the computer make us less distant with our friends and families no matter in which corner of the world, but it also takes us away from the real life and just put us into a virtuel black hole, and it also causes some addictions we've never faced before. Even if the consequences are unfathomable when all these things disappear tomorrow , you can't deny the fact that all those scientific developments are related and interacted with the morality.
Science and morality do interact with each other strongly, that is what we're defending, they can't be independent from each other. It's true that it is absurd to think that these centuries of painstaking accumulation of knowledge in physics and mathematics have been made in order to give birth to the atomic bomb, but the truth is that the nuclear power did not come into being yesterday, just as you said, "the scientific background has already been in existence for many years" .What people have debated since long time is that" if it is worthy to take the risk of what just happened in Fukushima to use this kind of technology to produce energy or use it as weapon. " but not" some unrelated experiement made in some small lab". From this point, the mentions of the role of science in influencing morality have always existed.
I highly agree the we should discover "the mother nature secrets" to better use it . Of course, a better understanding of human nature can affect the moral judgement, But please don't be distracted, our subject is the" science and morality don't mix ", even you have found out all her secrets and kindly put them into use of a cure for some diseases, but finally end up in relying on them thoroughly, we can't say that we're never confused about if it is going to cause some moral issues. In other words, simply by viture of explaining the nature and furthering knowledge, we may actually be inadvertently affecting people's morels and the way they see the nature.
Morality is a human concept and it will change with the time, no one can image how the world is if the old days chinese women still walk with their 3 inch lotus and marry a man only because their arms are seen naked. The world is always changing, because of the evolution of culture and values and the progress of all the scienctific tools and technologies.
However, some fondemental values never change, like no matter in which era we can't take peole's life away as we want, and people tend to pursue a better and less risky life with time going, that means as for now people still tolerate the colonning experiments on the animals and the slight nuclear radioactivity produced by those power plants even there're a lot of moral issues on them , but who knows in 10 years or 20 years, when people find better way to control all those risky facteurs, if there will still be people willing to accept all these? All these just simply demonstrate the morality and the development of sciences are always unseperated.
We are a part of nature, but we are different from all the other livings things in the nature, we have always to overpower it, all kinds of the pollution damaging the ecological balance is the best exemple of that. Ultimately, it is important to note that our power of manipulating science influence altitude towards the nature and also change the morality of those who come into contact with it.
ZQ
No comments:
Post a Comment