Government Spending

There has always been a debate on government spending in various research areas. Someone suggests that comparing to non-scientific research, only scientific research contributing to the development of modern society is worth investing. I can not disagree more with it.

It’s true that scientific research, in areas such as physics and technology, has greatly improved our quality of life. However, given the ultimate goal of building an ideal society, one shall not overlook the importance of non-scientific research. Studies in philosophy and history for example, can help us to explore our moral world, learn from past experience and find implications on how a society may function better. Politics for example, is always a fight between different thoughts and opinions as there is no determined right or wrong.

One may argue that if there are no hard facts to prove any theories, non-scientific research is meaningless. However, the entire value judgment system guiding us of what we should do, is essentially non-scientific and illogical, reflecting a consentience by common members at large.In other word, there are questions with no correct answers and can not be proved by scientific research. For instance, study into climate change can identify possible outcomes of human activities to the environment, yet whether we should adopt expensive environment protection schemes, compromising current benefit to future generations, is subject to research in ethics and sociology.

Overall speaking, scientific research provides us a pathway to social development, where non-scientific research serves as the necessary guidance. Both of them are crucial for a country in achieving an ideal society.