Senior cycle winning essay
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"Homemade Crystals" by Alastair Greene from Wesley College, Dublin, who came
third in the Junior Cycle category of the Science Week 2008 photography
competitionBy Seán Burke (17), Moyle Park College, Clondalkin, Dublin 22
Senior cycle winner, Science Week 2008 schools essay competition on "Science – Shaping Our World"
We need only take a fleeting glance around us to see various examples of modern science and one of its by-products, modern technology. In our daily lives, living in first-world countries, we are almost fully dependent on science.
Although scientific processes and methods change on a regular basis, there is one constant: we rely on the benefits of science all the time.
We forget all too easily that our computers, laptops, mobile phones, MP3 players and computer games, all of which are permanent fixtures to us nowadays, were either fledglings or not even invented a mere 20 years ago.
This, coupled with the fact that medical science in particular has made huge leaps in the same period of time, makes it tough to imagine just how we managed to cope, especially a teenager like me. You often hear people saying “How did we ever live without a mobile phone?”. It truly is hard to visualise.
Over the last 200 years we have seen inventions such as the television, the phone, the computer, the motor car, and the aeroplane.
We have also experienced scientific advances like cloning, incredible medical breakthroughs and the discovery and ongoing work on the Human Genome Project. In that respect, our changing world has been largely down to science and its development.
The continuing evolution of modern science leads to countless advantages and benefits to mankind. As medical procedures, technology and a general understanding of the world around us all improve, so too does our quality of life.
Imagine showing a motor car to chivalrous horse-riding knights in the Middle Ages! Or imagine a brave sword-fighting army confronted with the threat of modern assault rifles and ballistic weaponry! The changes and effects of science have palpably shaped our world for centuries.
How many lives have been saved by improving medical procedures and facilities, the likes of which would’ve been unheard of 40 or 50 years ago?
Who would’ve thought that everybody, including young children and elderly people, would possess their very own portable phone? Phones capable of not just phone calls but text messaging too, and even accessing the Internet.
On the subject of the Internet, based on the behemoth primitive computers of the 1960s, '70s and '80s, who would’ve imagined that in the vast majority of households there would be at least one computer with broadband Internet access? Computers a fraction of the size of the dated early computers, no less!
But there are some underlying downsides to changing science too. With the advent of cloning methods, many ethical questions have been raised over this concept; people perceive cloning animals to be akin to "playing God".
Maybe, in the future, people’s beliefs will clash with more advanced scientific breakthroughs. This may even give rise to conflict between science associations and fundamentalist groups.
In this sense, the continually changing face of science could actually bring about its own halt or downfall, a hiatus due to opposition from religious parties.
Another product of science which has negative connotations is military weaponry, particularly the atomic bomb. Created through a complex scientific process of splitting atoms, the atom bomb represented an ominous advance at the time. I’m sure millions of people the world over looked on apprehensively and probably feared for their lives upon learning about this devastating weapon.
And, although you might say that a weapon is only as powerful as the person using it, there is little debate that the tens of thousands of people who died in the blasts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively died due to a new technological breakthrough.
If this nuclear tragedy happened in 1945, who’s to say that in the year 2045 there won’t be a weapon that can destroy planet Earth entirely by itself? Or even the whole galaxy, as "sci-fi" as that sounds?
Indeed, what does science hold for us in 2045 and beyond? At this point, all we can do is speculate and ask unanswerable questions. Flying cars maybe? Fully developed robotics to assist humans in their everyday lives? Will medicinal and doctoral procedures progress so much that our life expectancy will shoot up as high as 1,000 years of age, as some scientists speculate? It doesn’t bear reason trying to think blindly about the future. All we can do is live in the now.
Despite some rare instances of negativity in changing science (e.g. the aforementioned nuclear weapons and playing God), I am firmly of the opinion that science has a vitally important role in today’s changing world. Personally I will embrace the next generation of scientific products and processes.
If the distant future sees me as an 800-year-old bag of rickety bones, trying to get my “new-fangled” prosthetic brain to transmit my thoughts from my head to a holographic computer monitor, then so be it. Maybe then we could all instantly create essays similar to this one in such a manner in this high-technical future. Nothing is impossible!
