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Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay | Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science for Students and Children in English

February 14, 2024 by Prasanna

Uses And Abuses Of Science Essay – Given below is a Long and Short Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science of competitive exams, kids and students belonging to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The Uses And Abuses Of Science essay 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 500 words in English helps the students with their class assignments, comprehension tasks, and even for competitive examinations.

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Long Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science 500+ Words for Kids and Students in English

Just as fire is a good slave but a bad master, science too has its positive as well as negative aspects. Science is the most revolutionary thing that has been devised by man. Science does not rely on supposition and imagination, but is an organised body of knowledge based on facts. Earth Science was one of the first to be studied and we have some a long way from the days when the Earth was believed to be flat.

People are always curious to learn more about the world surrounding them. This has brought about fascinating discoveries and inventions not only in the fields of biology, astronomy, chemistry but in our daily lives too. Vast improvement in the field of medicine has resulted in the controlling of epidemics, and increasing the average life expectancy. Diseases like influenza, chickenpox or typhoid are no longer fatal and leprosy and even some forms of cancer are now curable. The crippling disease, polio, has been eradicated from most parts of the world.

We have better drugs and instruments but men are becoming weak in terms of physique and mind. What an irony of fate it is! Today, we suffer from sensitive ‘ear’, sensitive lung’ and a sensitive liver’ due to fast speed, smoky atmosphere and dusty roads. So, science makes mankind happy by its latest achievements but it also makes us unhappy when it shows distructive power. Science can be used for gaining happiness but science put to wrong and negative use, can cause unimaginable disasters.

Science has given us such comfrots as were unimaginable a few years ago. Today, we switch on the radio and listen to music. We have electricity, telephone, television, washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioning plants, satellites, cellular phones, metro trains, fast trains, aircraft and the most modern medicine systems. All these things have made the life of man very comfortable. The electric fans, cinemas, cars, trams, mobile phones and jumbo aircraft are among other scientific inventions and discoveries that have made life easy and comfortable.

The industrial revolution has been a landmark in the development of many countries. Rapid industrialisation required more markets and that gave rise to the concept of colonisation. Today, the major concern with most developed countries is the management of their industrial waste. More recently, the concern has shifted to the disposal of radioactive waste. Scientists have discovered nuclear energy which is a non-polluting source of energy, but there has been an increase in the number of disasters caused by radioactive waste.

Cases like Chernobyl, Hiroshima-Nagasaki and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy highlight the ill-effects of nuclear energy. Though presently it is the best alternative for the increasing requirement of energy, we cannot overlook the ever-increasing use, or rather misuse, of nuclear energy and development of sophisticated and powerful nuclear weapons.

Short Essay on Uses And Abuses Of Science 300 Words for Kids and Students in English

Science has progressed in both the domains – constructive as well as destructive. The latest triumphs of science try to remove the evils of disease and death. These have also increased the threat to human life. On the destructive side, science has invented weapons that are most dreadful and disastrous. The inventions of laser beams, neutron bomb and hydrogen bombs have increased the chances of human destruction. If these weapons are put to use, they would spell disaster for the entire mankind.

One of the most frequent and popular question which is often asked is, “Are scientific inventions making us happier?” Science has definitely made life easier for man. Telecommunication and technology have made the world, not just a small place, but a tiny world. We can talk to a person across the world sitting in front of our webcams, we can send pictures and videos in minutes over the net and we can carry a world of information in a tiny microchip. However, we must keep in mind that wrongful exploitation of science can result in disastrous consequences like nuclear wars, high levels of atmospheric pollution and a widespread loss of life and property.

As modern age is an age of science, man has become calculative and mechanical. Science is advancing and it is thwarting our civilisation. In the kingdom of science, words like love, affection and sentiments are fast becoming alien. So what is the use of science for man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Spiritualism is on the wane while materialism is on the rise. Philosophy, culture and poetry are fading from human life because of the rapid advancement of science.

Therefore, the opinion remains divided on the science being a boon or bane. No one claims for certain that science is complete happiness or an impending curse. However, the latest triumphs and victories of science need to be properly utilised, otherwise, they can bring certain death and destruction to the human race.

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Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science | Uses and Abuses of Science Essay for Students and Children in English

Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science: This is the age of science. Science has changed entire world. It is not the same world that our ancestors lived in. If they were to return today, they would certainly not be able to recognise the place. Today we have electricity, telephones, TVs, medicines, computers and the Internet, cars, airplanes lazer photography and much more, which will seem like wonders to someone from that age.

Students can find more English  Essay Writing  Topics, Ideas, Easy Tips to Write Essay Writing and many more.

Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science 300 Words for Kids and Students in English

Below we have given a short essay on Uses and Abuses of Science is for Classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. This short essay on the topic is suitable for students of class 6 and below.

Science has made our lives comfortable and convenient in 76 many ways. It has enabled us to save time in all aspects of our lives, from cooking to washing, travelling and communicating. It has made the world smaller and more accessible to us. Science seems to have conquered time and distance.

It is because of science that we are able to cope better with illnesses today. This has made our lives easier and increased our lifespan. In fact, there is no area of modem life in which science has not made an impact.

Almost every day, either new inventions are being reported or existing ones are being improved upon. They are being made faster, safer and even more efficient.

Besides the advantages, there are also some disadvantages of science. The race to develop the most lethal and advanced weapons and bombs like nuclear bombs can lead to total destmction of mankind. We have become too dependent on machines. We do minimal manual or physical work, which is not only making us less capable of doing work manually but also taking a toll on our health. World has certainly become a global village but ironically we are becoming less social. We may watch

TV or chat with friends over mobile or Internet but we hardly have time for our family members, any social gatherings or to visit any social club. Modem technology used in industries and transportation is leading to depeletion of natural resources and has also increased the level of pollution.

It is in our hands to mm science into a curse or boon for us. If we use science in moderation and with discretion we can certainly make science beneficial to us. Let’s not be the slaves of machines or science, rather use them to help us make life comfortable, healthy and peaceful.

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Historical Lessons on the Use and Abuse of Science and Scientists: A Letter from Patrick J. Loehrer, Sr. M.D. to Colleagues

Peter Schwartz, MD, PhD Jul 24, 2020

Dear colleagues,

“One thing only I know … and that is I know nothing.” So said Socrates, one of the founders of Western philosophy, about 2,400 years ago. This was in response to hearing that the Oracle of Delphi declared there was no one who was wiser than Socrates. He tried to prove the Oracle wrong by interviewing “wise men,” but he found that unlike these so-called wise men, Socrates did not claim to know what he did not know. This was the true meaning of the Oracle’s message. Socrates frequently engaged students and citizens in Athens in philosophical discussions using questions and answers (the Socratic Method). Socrates also was an outspoken critic of the Athenian government, which eventually led to his conviction and a sentence of death by drinking hemlock.

Persecution and defamation also have not been uncommon in science. In Renaissance times, there emerged heretical thoughts that the Earth might rotate around the sun, rather than the other way around (heliocentric theory). Nicolaus Copernicus published this theory in 1543 in his famous work De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium , which directly challenged the teachings of the Bible. Perhaps fortunately, he died shortly after its publication sparing him persecution. It did not fare as well for Galileo Galilei, who was born a couple decades after Copernicus death. Galileo was found by the Catholic church to be “vehemently suspect” of heresy for his publications supporting the Copernican heliocentric views. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to house arrest, where he remained for the rest of his life and his offending texts were banned. Four centuries later, Pope John Paul II acknowledged that the Catholic church had erred in condemning Galileo.

Another example of delayed scientific acceptance is the story of James Lind who was a military surgeon who served in the British Royal Navy from 1739 t0 1748. Lind conducted one of the first randomized clinical trials in medicine. In his time, scurvy was a leading cause of death among sailors, reportedly causing more deaths in the British fleet than by the hands of their French or Spanish foes with whom they were engaged in armed conflict. Scurvy is caused by vitamin C deficiency, but in Lind’s day, the concept of vitamins was still unknown. After two months at sea, many of his fellow shipmates on the HMS Salisbury were afflicted with scurvy. Lind divided 12 of these sailors into six groups of two. They all received the same diet. In addition, group one was given a quart of cider daily, group two 25 drops of elixir of vitriol (sulfuric acid), group three six spoonful’s of vinegar, group four half a pint of seawater, group five received two oranges and one lemon, and group six a spicy paste plus a drink of barley water. The treatment of group five (oranges and lemon) stopped after six days when they ran out of fruit, but by that time one sailor was fit for duty while the other had almost recovered. In 1753, Lind published A Treatise of the Scurvy , which was ignored for decades.

Today, we are faced with a pandemic caused by a novel coronavirus, discovered just a few months ago. Like the scientists and philosophers over the last two millennia, we are struggling to understand this virus, including its treatment and prevention. We have the advantages of modern technology and the rapid exchange of knowledge that is unprecedented in our history. This still does not mean we get it all right, but we try.

No one is trying harder than Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who has been the public face of rational scientific reasoning during this pandemic.

Amid speculations of displeasure by the White House, the editorial board of USA Today wrote last week, “Fauci, 79, is a national treasure. He is one of the leading authorities in his field. He combines extraordinary expertise with an exceptional ability to communicate with ordinary people. He has held his position  for 36 years , earning the admiration of multiple presidents, including George W. Bush, who  awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom . ” Through the HIV, SARS, MERS, and Ebola crises, Dr. Fauci has led with candor and caution. 

However, in an opinion piece in the same issue , White House trade adviser Peter Navarro painted a different view: “ Anthony Fauci has been wrong about everything I have interacted with him on.” Navarro went on to describe how Fauci was wrong on masks, travel bans from China, and the benefits of hydroxychloroquine and when it comes to listening to Fauci, he only does so with “with skepticism and caution.” Also, Dan Scavino, the administration’s deputy chief of staff for communications, posted a cartoon lampooning Fauci as an economy-destroyer. In the caption of the post, he wrote, “Sorry, Dr. Faucet! At least you know if I’m going to disagree with a colleague, such as yourself, it’s done publicly — and not cowardly, behind journalists with leaks. See you tomorrow!” Fortunately, others have come to Dr. Fauci’s defense.

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) issued the following statement:

“The AAMC is extremely concerned and alarmed by efforts to discredit Anthony Fauci, M.D., our nation’s top infectious disease expert. Dr. Fauci has been an independent and outspoken voice for truth as the nation has struggled to fight the coronavirus pandemic. As we are seeing from the surge in COVID-19 cases in areas that have reopened, science and facts — not wishful thinking or politics — must guide America’s response to this pandemic. … a successful response depends on Dr. Fauci, his colleagues, and scientists throughout America’s system of medical research who are able to draw conclusions based on current observations and continuously adjust those conclusions based on continuing observations. Science is, and must be, a dynamic and evolving process.”

And on behalf of the Infectious Disease Society of America, President Thomas File wrote :

“As 12,000 medical doctors, research scientists, and public health experts on the front lines of COVID-19, the infectious diseases community will not be silenced nor sidelined amidst a global pandemic. Reports of a campaign to discredit and diminish the role of Dr. Fauci at this perilous moment are disturbing. … This is a full-blown crisis unlike any America has ever faced and it needs to be treated as such. The only way out of this pandemic is by following the science, and developing evidence-based prevention practices and treatment protocols as new scientifically rigorous data become available. Knowledge changes over time. That is to be expected. If we have any hope of ending this crisis, all of America must support public health experts, including Dr. Fauci, and stand with science.”

As scientists, we are used to being critiqued on our work. Of course, we are upset when receiving inappropriate reviews of our grant submissions or uninformed comments on our submitted papers. This current atmosphere on a national level feels much different. There are efforts to dismiss the field of science and discount sound public health practices. More disturbing is a concerted effort to disparage the messengers. Despite the advances in science, technology, and communications, we are reminded that there still remain people who persecute others that share what are inconvenient truths. It is our duty to be resilient in defense of our vocation but also admit when we are wrong, or as Socrates said, “True wisdom comes to each of us when we realize how little we understand about life, ourselves, and the world around us.” 

Patrick J. Loehrer, Sr., M.D. Distinguished Professor Associate Dean for Cancer Research Director, Indiana University Melvin and Bren Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center H.H. Gregg Professor of Oncology Professor of Medicine Indiana University School of Medicine 

Peter Schwartz, MD, PhD

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The Use and Abuse of Science

• First Online: 21 March 2020

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• Paul Needham 7  

Part of the book series: Synthese Library ((SYLI,volume 423))

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Moral issues concerning the use and abuse of science are broached in this chapter. Scientists have responsibilities to conduct their research in such a way as to respect and acknowledge the contributions of others and to present their work honestly and without seeking to avoid criticism by misleadingly overestimating random error. The onus on scientists of a wider social responsibility for informing the public and guiding decision makers is also discussed, together with the reciprocal responsibilities of decision makers to ensure that they are informed and able to understand the bearing of new knowledge.

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But a more general claim by Koyré that it would not have been possible to carry out any of the experiments and observations Galileo reported goes too far. Settle ( 1961 ) repeated an experiment on inclined planes in accordance with Galileo’s description, which Koyré had described as completely worthless, and found the ingenious device for measuring time gave quite precise results—certainly precise enough to attain the relations of proportion between distance and times that Galileo claimed. Koyré maintained further that Galileo’s procedure couldn’t possibly furnish a reasonable value of the constant of proportionality appearing in the algebraic expression of this relation of proportion. But as Settle points out, this modern way of expressing the law of free fall by writing distance as a function of time was not the way Galileo expressed the relation, which was weaker and didn’t entail all that the modern functional expression does.

Note that in modern usage introduced towards the end of Sect. 2.2 , we should say “precision” rather than “accuracy”.

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Needham, P. (2020). The Use and Abuse of Science. In: Getting to Know the World Scientifically. Synthese Library, vol 423. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40216-7_4

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Abusing science

Joseph d. mcinerney.

1 Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, National Coalition for Health Professional Education in Genetics, American Society of Human Genetics, Lutherville MD, USA

Michael J. Dougherty

2 Department of Pediatrics, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Aurora CO, USA

The perversion of science in the interest of ideology and greed is not a new phenomenon, but a public that is largely scientifically illiterate now is besieged by “alternative facts” and well‐designed efforts to discredit legitimate science on topics ranging from vaccines to climate change. Here, we examine three topics rooted in biology and biomedicine—creationism, harms from tobacco, and opioid addiction—to show that those purveying misinformation employ a consistent pattern of intellectual dishonesty to delegitimize science that challenges their ideological positions. Individual scientists and the scientific community at large should confront and counter these attacks on the intellectual integrity that is at the heart of the scientific enterprise.

“The foundation of morality is to have done, once and for all, with lying.” Thomas Henry Huxley, keynote address at the inauguration of Johns Hopkins University 12 September 1876

1. INTRODUCTION

In August 2017, the National Association of Biology Teachers (NABT), in the United States, published an editorial titled “Teaching Biology in the Age of ‘Alternative Facts’”. 1 Biology teachers in the U.S. certainly were accustomed to being besieged by the alternative facts of creationism, especially as that movement morphed from its religious foundations to the charades of “creation science” and “intelligent design,” failed attempts to make the Christian creation myth less overtly violative of the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment.

Given that history, why would NABT’s board feel compelled to issue a broader statement on “alternative facts” and the challenges they present to teachers and students? The editorial explains as follows:

In an age of “fake news” and “alternative facts,” our society is constantly bombarded with disinformation designed to undermine the principles under which scientific inquiry operates and cast doubt on conclusions derived through the scientific enterprise…. Our members understand that the recent efforts to cast doubt on the science of climate change or the process of evolution are no more valid than past campaigns that attempted to cast doubt on the deleterious health effects of tobacco use or the benefits of immunization for individuals and society….When science denialism goes unchallenged, each instance not only impacts that specific area of science, but serves to undermine all of science, with dramatic and harmful effects. 1

As the editorial indicates, the range of scientific topics threatened by disinformation is broad, and the 2020 coronavirus pandemic quickly became subject to the same threats, ranging from inaccurate, even dangerous, speculation issued by the White House 2 to frank scams designed to bilk a nervous public out of its money. 3

When confronting such misinformation, is it sufficient for scientists simply to remind the public that science does not recognize “alternative facts” and designates them as “errors”? We think not. When confronting willful misinformation, it is important to be clear about the objectives of those who are inventing and promulgating “alternative facts” in the current political climate. Those responsible are not seeking to engage the public in abstruse and nuanced discussions about epistemology. Their intent, rather, is to delegitimize valid science, to obfuscate the issues at hand, and to confuse a public that has low scientific literacy. 4 , 5 , 6 To counter those efforts, the public needs to understand the often‐malign motives of the individuals and entities responsible, and it needs the tools to distinguish valid information from sheer nonsense.

Motives for the invention and promulgation of “alternative facts” often have their roots in ideology—political, religious, economic, and otherwise. In trying to combat willful misinformation and “alternative facts,” therefore, one must do more than provide the correct information. The “deficit model” of improving science literacy by merely providing accurate content is known to be inadequate because scientific knowledge is linked to attitudes about science. 5 The history of the evolution/creation controversy makes clear, for example, that scientists cannot simply “throw facts at the problem,” as Eugenie Scott, long‐time director of the National Center for Science Education, often said, and the steady accumulation of evidence that supports descent with modification, including comparative genomic sequencing, has had little or no impact on creationists. Both of us have asked creationists to identify scientific evidence that would convince them of the validity of evolution. The unequivocal answer has been, “there is none.”

In the face of such intransigence, one must consider the best use of time, intellectual energy, and resources, and one must understand and address the ideologies that make its adherents embrace erroneous information and that leave them refractory to legitimate science. Further, one must be clear on the meaning of “ideology” itself, especially in the context of science‐related controversies.

Throughout this paper, our definition of ideology will follow that of David Joravsky, developed in The Lysenko Affair , 7 his detailed analysis of one of history's most notorious and long‐lived ideological attacks on the integrity of science. According to Joravsky:

When we call a belief “ideological,” we are saying at least three things about it: although it is unverified or unverifiable, it is accepted as verified by a particular group, because it performs social functions for that group. “Group” is used loosely to indicate such aggregations as parties, professions, classes, or nations. “Because” is also used loosely, to indicate a functional correlation rather than a strictly causal connection between acceptance of a belief and other social processes. 7

The intent of the several examples that follow is to demonstrate the pattern of willful ignorance and duplicity that underlies assaults on the integrity of science driven by ideology. There are other examples, of course, but those we have chosen have their roots in the abuse of biology and biomedicine. For each topic we review briefly the underlying science, falsehoods promulgated by the abusers, intended audience(s), mechanisms for distribution, underlying ideologies, damage, and potential repair.

2. CREATIONISM

Perhaps no issue at the interface of biology and American society has the staying power and pervasive cultural reach of creationism and its factual and ideological conflicts with evolution theory. The conflicts derive largely from the unending growth of scientific and technological knowledge that contradicts the pleasant creationist fictions of Judeo‐Christian scripture and their accounts of the origin of the universe and life on earth.

Readers of this journal know that evolutionary biology and its related disciplines such as geology posit an ancient age for the universe, our planet, and its biota. Evolution also demonstrates the relatedness of all species through descent with modification and the appearance of H . sapiens as a product of the same natural processes that produced all other life on earth. Charles Darwin established the mutability of species and the centrality of natural selection in the generation of earth's biodiversity and in the appearance of design in living things. 8 , 9

Although it is not monolithic – there are varieties of creationism – the creationist belief system is rooted in a broad, interrelated network of falsehoods that challenge virtually all assumptions of evolution theory and seek to affirm scriptural accounts of life's origin and diversity. The Genesis account of creation is, according to its adherents, the true and inspired word of God. Creationist literature asserts that the universe and life on earth are anything but ancient; young‐earth creationists have settled on roughly 6000 years. Species are said to be immutable and were specially created by a supernatural entity, the God of Judeo‐Christian scripture. Intelligent design, the most recent putatively scientific iteration of creationism, leaves the designer unnamed so as to escape legal sanction in court cases that adjudicate creationism's religious intent. According to creationists, H . sapiens was created by God in his image. Furthermore, the fit of a species to its niche is claimed to be evidence of an intelligent designer, not the result of cumulative, iterative selection acting on naturally occurring inherited variation.

Creationism's underlying ideology is a powerful and toxic blend of religion and social engineering, performing social functions for those who insist on the validity and authority of revealed knowledge and those with a commitment to a religious foundation for the basic structure of society, including governance. The relentless drive to insert creationism into public schools reflects the desire of its adherents to ensure that public education reflects sectarian principles. 10 , 11

A secondary motivation, if not precisely an ideology in the Joravsky sense of the term, is greed. Individuals and entities whose educational materials promote creationist perspectives, for example, stand to profit from adoption of those materials by religious institutions or by public schools whose administrations support creationist perspectives in the curriculum. Similarly, those who run creationist theme parks such as the Ark Encounter and the Creation Museum, both in Kentucky, derive revenue from those attractions, 12 notwithstanding their scientific bankruptcy.

Intended audiences for creationism are expansive and reflect the underlying ideology. The general public, students, and teachers, for example, are targets of creationist content that seeks to support the validity and acceptance of the movement's underlying religious perspectives. On the other hand, creationists often target school boards, state legislatures, and the courts at all levels in their continuing, but largely unsuccessful efforts to secure political and legal sanctions for the inclusion of creationist content in public institutions.

Distribution of creationist ideology occurs through well‐established religious institutions, especially fundamentalist Christian churches in the United States, and through their associated print and electronic media. In Islamic countries such as Turkey, creationist textbooks have reflected the perspectives of leading American creationist organizations and have enjoyed support of the national government, 13 in this case with the intent of weakening long‐standing public support for a secular society and government.

Creationist organizations in the U.S., such as Answers in Genesis and the Discovery Institute, produce “research” that purports to demonstrate the scientific validity of creationism, though the relevant work products rarely if ever find their way into legitimate, peer‐reviewed scientific journals. The aggrieved authors claim discipline‐wide conspiracies on the part of scientists to bar creationist “research” from the scientific literature, a charge that itself performs a social function by bolstering the assertion that religious freedom is under attack by a secular society.

The mainstream media often has been complicit in the promulgation of creationist views by its insistence on “presenting both sides of the evolution/creationism controversy,” a classic example of the false equivalence of some competing ideas. In reality, there are not two equal sides of this issue; there is science and there is pseudoscience and mysticism.

Creationist propaganda calls the cadence on a march toward ignorance for thousands of members of the adult public and for thousands of students who are exposed to mysticism masquerading as science. This assault on scientific integrity damages the public's understanding of biology in particular. It is, of course, possible to teach biology without addressing evolution—it happens all the time 14 —but it is not possible to understand biology if one does not realize that evolution is the central organizing concept of the entire discipline. 15

Beyond biology, creationist propaganda damages science in general in at least three ways. First, creationists assert repeatedly that “evolution is only a theory”, 16 a claim that reduces a theory to little more than an ephemeral guess, when science actually views a theory as a compelling conceptual framework that explains and organizes a large body of observations and experimental results. Indeed, “theories are the end points of science”, 17 not the speculative beginnings. Second, creationism begins with a set of conclusions and acknowledges only data that support them, a perversion of deductive reasoning. Science, by contrast, relies on a combination of (honest) deductive processes, which use questions and hypothesis‐testing to go where the data lead, even if the destination is not what one had hoped, and inductive processes. Indeed, Darwin's work was itself a monument to the power of inductive reasoning as he collected detailed observations over decades until he was able to shape them into a general theory, arguably the most impressive act of synthetic thinking in the history of biology. Third, the use of political and legislative tactics to compel inclusion of creationism in the public‐school curriculum circumvents the standard processes by which scientific content is vetted, accepted as part of the corpus of scientific knowledge, and, ultimately, incorporated into science education.

Finally, creationism does serious damage to secular societies and governance by seeking to overturn the underlying assumptions of separation of church and state, and to religion by forcing it to reject overwhelming scientific evidence and to adhere to patently erroneous—even ridiculous—propositions to explain the history and nature of life on earth.

Repair of the damage to science and society done by creationism is problematic given that surveys show public attitudes toward evolution have remained virtually unchanged for decades. 18 About half of the American public, for example, still accepts that all life on earth was created withing the last 10,000 years by a supernatural entity and has remained unchanged since that time. Damage control, especially in the United States, may be the only real option for science and scientists because, as Gary Wills 19 has written, creationism will never disappear because “the Bible will never stop being the central book of Western civilization.”

Scientists and science educators who have dealt with the leaders of the creationist movement for many years know that it generally is pointless to argue with them; they are essentially impervious to scientific data and to reason. The better use of time and resources is to determine where these leaders are attempting to influence policies—educational, political, legal—and to meet the battle there. The law, for example, clearly is on the side of science, 20 and one should use it to blunt attempts to insert religious dogma into the science curriculum.

Too often, working scientists fail to take creationist efforts seriously, dismissing them as so absurd as to be unworthy of attention. History shows that view to be dangerously mistaken, and scientists should be willing to help oppose any attempts to insert creationist dogma into science education.

One should not, however, tackle these issues without substantive, experienced assistance. The National Center for Science Education ( https://ncse.ngo/ ) is a very good place to start when looking for such help. Furthermore, scientists, no matter how well versed in evolution theory, should resist invitations to debate creationists. Such events are not really debates—creationists are unconstrained by the truth—but rather performances by creationist hucksters. A classic example of the willful perversion of science in such events is the claim that the second law of thermodynamics precludes evolution. That assertion was standard debate fare for the late Duane Gish, former director of the oxymoronic Institute for Creation Research. Gish, who held a PhD in biochemistry from University of California, Berkeley, clearly knew better, but he perpetuated the lie nonetheless before lay audiences.

There still is benefit and hope in dealing with students, some of whom have been sold the false notion that they must choose between evolution and their faith. Experienced educators who are knowledgeable in biology and scripture can help guide such students through this challenge, but that skill requires more than an understanding of evolution; it requires as well a deep understanding of the social functions creationism performs for the believer.

3. SMOKING IS HARMLESS

Tobacco has a long history in America, beginning with its cultivation by Native Americans, but the commercialization of tobacco by early British colonists—and the profits it generated—would provide, centuries later, an incentive for the abuse of science using sophisticated methods that now serve as a playbook for other industries and ideologies. Despite tobacco's pre‐Revolutionary origins as a commodity, it was not until the early twentieth century that cigarettes replaced chewing tobacco as the major consumer tobacco product. Before long, rapidly increasing lung cancer diagnoses, which had been rare, began to raise concerns about the harmful effects of smoking. 21

Studies from the 1920s through the 1940s linked smoking with lung cancer, but these had been retrospective and relied heavily on smokers’ self‐reported—and often unreliable—use of cigarettes, which allowed tobacco companies to criticize any potential cause and effect relationship. The results of the first large prospective study were published in an article in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 1954, which demonstrated significant increases in deaths among cigarette smokers due to cancer and heart disease. 22 The authors wrote that “… we are of the opinion that the associations found between regular cigarette smoking and death rates from diseases of the coronary arteries and between regular cigarette smoking and death rates from lung cancer reflect cause and effect relationships.”

Additional studies supported those results, and now we know a great deal more about both the hazards of tobacco use and the mechanisms by which those harms are effected. There are more than 7000 chemicals in smoked tobacco, hundreds of which are harmful and at least 69 of which are carcinogenic. The harmful effects occur when cells absorb these chemicals, which then damage DNA and disrupt normal function. The changes can contribute not only to cardiovascular disease and cancer but to a variety of other diseases, such as immune system disorders. 23 Smoking during pregnancy is a major contributor to low‐birth weight babies and preterm births. 24

Tobacco companies, rather than respecting the emerging science, were already manipulating it toward ends that would compromise public health. According to court rulings in the landmark trial of “Big Tobacco,” nicotine levels had been manipulated in cigarettes since at least 1954 to encourage smokers to smoke more. 25 Leaders of the major companies lied about this fact for decades, including in hearings before Congress. 26 As far back as 1964, the Surgeon General of the U.S. linked cigarette smoking and disease, and tobacco companies lied about this as well even when their own research showed it to be true. Companies also used false advertising to promote low‐tar cigarettes as less harmful than regular cigarettes, a tactic specially designed for older smokers to prevent them from quitting. 27 Older, current smokers, of course, were not the only target audience for tobacco companies. R.J. Reynolds’ egregious behavior in cultivating youth smokers through its “Joe Camel” advertising campaign has been well documented, and in 1997, after a run of nine years, the campaign was ruled by the Federal Trade Commission to have violated federal law. According to the FTC, “after the campaign began the percentage of kids who smoked Camels became larger than the percentage of adults who smoked Camels”. 28

The distribution of Big Tobacco's messages to promote smoking or to deny its harms were not limited to traditional advertising, such as print ads and event sponsorships. In late 1953, working through leading a public relations agency, Hill and Knowlton, Big Tobacco created an industry‐sponsored research organization, the Tobacco Industry Research Committee (TIRC), that was promoted as independent but was, in fact, wholly controlled by the industry. 29 Similar to the organizations that would later promote creation science and intelligent design, TIRC worked to find data in support of a conclusion, in this case the conclusion that smoking was not harmful. One way this was accomplished was by recruiting prominent scientists as leaders, funding scientists who were skeptical about the emerging health consensus, and then using their results in counter‐messaging. 30 Industry‐funded research then, as now, presents potential conflicts of interest, and not all scientists are equally sensitive to, or respectful of, such conflicts. Another goal of TIRC‐funded projects was to undermine mainstream research studies that did not support conclusions favored by TIRC. Common tactics included highlighting flaws in methodology or gaps in understanding the mechanisms of cancer, 29 which were later adapted by creationists (e.g., playing up “gaps” in transitional fossils). According to Brandt, 29 “The TIRC marks one of the most intensive efforts by an industry to derail independent science in modern history.”

The ultimate motive for these efforts at scientific obfuscation was not a religious or social ideology as it is for creationists, which, though misguided, at least has the merit of sincerity. The motive here is rank profit, even at the expense of tobacco customers’ life and health, but the false‐science “belief system” of Big Tobacco still satisfies Joravsky's definition of ideology. Their science is wrong (i.e., unverified); it is accepted as verified by tobacco executives and presumably some smokers; and it performs a social function, for example justifying an economic system that employs thousands. Profit may be the ultimate motive for the tobacco industry, but the cynical, proximate means to that end was far more sophisticated than creationists’ appeal to biblical literalism. According to Brandt:

“Hill & Knowlton [the public relations agency] had successfully produced uncertainty in the face of a powerful scientific consensus. So long as this uncertainty could be maintained, so long as the industry could claim ‘‘not proven,’’ it would be positioned to fight any attempts to assert regulatory authority over the industry. Without their claims of no proof and doubt, the companies would be highly vulnerable in two crucial venues: regulatory politics and litigation.” 29

Eventually scientific proof—achieved honestly—overwhelmed the disreputable science and doubt suffered a serious, but perhaps not fatal, blow. As the tide turned against smoking, the tobacco industry faced both greater regulatory control and lawsuits won by plaintiffs. The damage, however, had been done. Millions of American smokers are addicted to nicotine, and the harms caused by smoking are by now familiar. Even today, after sharp drops in the number of smokers, an estimated 480,000 people die annually from cigarettes in the U.S. More than 90 percent of lung cancer and 80 percent of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is caused by smoking. 31 Smoking is also estimated to cost the U.S. $170 billion per year in direct medical costs, and $300 billion overall. 32

Public health officials have been trying for decades to reduce the health and economic toll of smoking by supporting campaigns to help current smokers quit and to prevent smoking in the young. Given that 95 percent of tobacco smokers began before they were age 21, the most‐effective way to reduce harm is to prevent the development of a new generation of smokers. 33

Unfortunately, we now see some of the same Big Tobacco tactics being used to raise doubts about the potential harms of e‐cigarettes, which are essentially nicotine‐delivery devices. Juul, the largest of the e‐cigarette companies, is now owned in large part by Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris, and Vuse is owned by Reynolds American. These Big Tobacco players have an obvious interest in maintaining, and growing, the pool of people addicted to nicotine, and claims that e‐cigarettes are intended primarily to help adults quit smoking are undercut by the companies’ marketing.

Indeed, regulators are alarmed by the popularity of vaping among minors, which was driven largely by first‐wave products with fruit and candy flavors that are appealing to children. E‐cigarette use jumped 78 percent among high schoolers and 48 percent among middle‐schoolers in just one year, from 2017 to 2018. In a statement of concern from the Food and Drug Administration, then‐commissioner Scott Gottlieb outlined steps he intended to take to prevent the use of e‐cigarettes by children. 33 Predictably, lobbyists for tobacco companies, including Altria and Reynolds American, have aligned against legislation to regulate and tax e‐cigarettes. 34

It still is too early to tell whether e‐cigarette companies will attempt to corrupt science in the systematic ways that tobacco companies used to promote smoking. Scientists, public health advocates, and educators, however, should be prepared to counter such disinformation campaigns. K‐12 education, public and private, must do a better job teaching the methods and nature of science, not just its content, but long lag times and an ever‐increasing number of important science issues currently being undermined (e.g., anti‐vaxx, climate change) suggest this will not be sufficient. Efforts should include enlisting the media, traditional and social, to help educate the public about the differences between honest science and the intellectually dishonest “science” peddled by those with alternative motives. Money from pro‐science philanthropists to support such efforts and promotion by key influencers may help level the playing field.

4. FOLLOWING A COMMON PLAYBOOK

Creationism and the hoax of harmless smoking are hardly the only examples of science corrupted in the service of ideologies unrelated to science. With some variation, the tactics used so successfully by creationists and Big Tobacco have been adopted and used by other groups with agendas that range from medicine to the environment. The recent polarization of American politics and society, the denigration of expertise as elitist, and the media's tendency to provide legitimizing, “both sides” coverage of issues, even when undeserved, seem only to have exacerbated this problem.

Opioids provide an interesting example where sloppy scholarship, dishonest marketing, the evolving practice of medicine, the co‐opting of scientific and medical leadership, and greed combined to create an addiction epidemic that has roiled the country for more than two decades. It all began in 1980 with a one‐paragraph letter by Jane Porter and Hershel Jick in the New England Journal of Medicine that made a simple observation: based on hospital records, narcotic addiction was rare in patients with no history of addiction. This was not a formal study, and there was no information about the narcotics being used or their dosage, frequency, or duration. 35 Over time other researchers cited this letter without context or qualification and, in some cases, later apologized for having never read it. An important missing caveat was that Porter and Jick's observation was based on hospitalized patients, not outpatients being prescribed drugs for self‐administration. 36

Unfortunately, this letter ended up serving two masters: a drug industry energized by Madison Avenue‐style marketing and a medical community in the midst of a changing paradigm, namely that pain was being undertreated and should be viewed as a “fifth vital sign”. 36 By the mid‐1990s, disreputable physicians, many of whom had been sanctioned, began opening pill mills across Appalachia. At the same time, Purdue Pharma developed OxyContin as a time‐release drug and promoted it as a less‐additive painkiller in spite of having provided no supporting data to the FDA. They falsely claimed that the narcotic was harder to extract (and thus abuse) than other painkillers when their own studies indicated that 68 percent of the oxycodone could be extracted when crushed and liquified. Phony graphs were also used in marketing to give the impression that the plasma levels of oxycodone were steady when, in fact, they spiked in the users’ blood and then crashed. Purdue Pharma ultimately was called to account, reminiscent of Big Tobacco, when three executives pled guilty to misdemeanor false branding and paid a $634M fine. 36 , 37

If manipulated and fraudulent science were not enough, the opioid industry also followed the Big Tobacco playbook by cultivating physicians, institutions, and organizations willing to support pharma's message that opioids were safe and non‐addictive. As alleged in a lawsuit filed by the Massachusetts Attorney General in 2019, “Purdue hired the most prolific opioid prescribers in Massachusetts as spokesmen to promote its drugs to other doctors. Purdue funded the Massachusetts General Hospital Purdue Pharma Pain Program and an entire degree program at Tufts University to influence Massachusetts doctors to use its drugs.” 38 Tufts even promoted a Purdue Pharma employee to Adjunct Associate Professor in 2011. 39

Leading advocacy groups and professional societies also played a role by lobbying on behalf of the opioid industry's marketing and prescribing practices while accepting their donations. In 2016, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued guidelines for primary care providers who prescribe narcotics for non‐cancer chronic pain. Those guidelines encouraged the preferential use of non‐opioid pharmacologic agents, highlighted the risks of addiction, and identified the drugs most likely to cause harm and the patients most at risk. 40 The drug industry did not approve. According to a report from the U.S. Senate's Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee (HSGAC), The American Pain Society, the U.S. Pain Foundation, the Academy of Integrative Pain Management, and the American Academy of Pain Management accepted more than $6M from narcotics manufacturers from 2012‐2017. 41 Altogether the report identifies more than a dozen groups receiving almost $9 M from five manufacturers. What did all this largess buy the industry? In part, active opposition to the development and issuance of the CDC guidelines by a majority of the groups identified in the HSGAC report. According to the report: “Many of the groups discussed in this report have amplified or issued messages that reinforce industry efforts to promote opioid prescription and use, including guidelines and policies minimizing the risk of addiction and promoting opioids for chronic pain”. 41

The internet, celebrity culture, and targeted marketing through social media such as Facebook make it easier to spread anti‐science messages to receptive groups than in decades past. Andrew Wakefield's reputation in the scientific community may be in shambles thanks to his fraudulent research claiming a link between autism and the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, but his public profile remains high and he is an unfairly maligned hero to the anti‐vaxx community. 42 The TV personality Jenny McCarthy runs a non‐profit called Generation Rescue that continues to provide a forum for Wakefield's dishonest claims, 43 which have caused real harm in the form of depressed vaccination rates in Great Britain and the United States. 44 What was Wakefield's motivation? The now‐familiar motivator of greed, in this case an elaborate scheme to get rich from lawsuits generated by vaccine fears. 45

Today there are also organizations, largely on the political right, that exist solely or in part to cast doubt on science that does not comport with their ideology of opposition to regulation. Not surprisingly this opposition often provides a side benefit: bolstering the economics of specific industries. Some of these organizations are respected think tanks with political philosophies strongly favoring free enterprise, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Hoover Institution, which sometimes provide a forum for climate‐change skeptics. 46 , 47 Others identify themselves as grassroots organizations while functioning primarily as lobbying groups for fossil fuel and other industries, such as the Koch‐funded Americans for Prosperity.

The non‐profit Association of American Physicians and Surgeons is a particularly interesting example. Through its publishing arm, the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, this trade association provides a forum for commentary about free‐market medicine (often not evidence‐based), polemics against regulation in medicine, and sometimes fringe science that has nothing to do with medicine but does align with its overall anti‐regulation ideology. Articles have cast doubt, for example, on the existence of climate change as a global threat, or trumpeted its benefits. 48 , 49 Others have questioned HIV as the cause of AIDS 50 and offered a sympathetic airing of anti‐vaxxers’ fringe view that autism is linked to vaccines, despite evidence to the contrary, even providing a forum for the discredited Andrew Wakefield. 51 , 52 , 53

5. CONCLUSION

Intentional perversion of science in the service of ideology makes clear the validity of the following assertion by neuroscientist and philosopher Sam Harris:

“The core of science is not controlled experiment or mathematical modeling; it is intellectual honesty. It is time we acknowledge a basic feature of human discourse: when considering the truth of a proposition, one is either engaged in an honest appraisal of the evidence and logical arguments, or one isn't”. 54

Intellectual honesty is the heart of all scholarship, irrespective of the discipline, and the translation of scholarship for the public should honor it, not debase it in the interest of ideology or greed. A public that has low scientific literacy and numeracy now faces a growing wave of misinformation, and that public will struggle to separate valid science from nonsense. 4 , 5 , 6 These trends bode ill for public awareness and acceptance of legitimate science and serve as an injunction for individual scientists and the scientific community to push back aggressively against all attempts to misrepresent the methods and results of sound research.

Strategies to counter the abuse of science vary and depend on the nature and context of the abuse in question. Some strategies may be specific and highly targeted, while others may be more far‐reaching. For example, one of us (JDM) threatened legal action against his children's public‐ school district if a creationist candidate for the board of education made good on his promise to mandate the teaching of creationism in the biology curriculum. On a broader scale, an organization both of us have worked for, the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study, assisted in a number of evolution/creationism court cases whose decisions had implications at state and national levels.

Whatever the context, prevention of and opposition to the abuse of science begin with the integrity of individual scientists and the scientific community at large, as invoked by Thomas Huxley and Sam Harris. Scientists should model that integrity in their work and should discuss it explicitly with their trainees—the next generation of scientists. Perhaps it is time as well to consider a complete ban on industry‐funded research for individual scientists working in academia and other non‐industry settings to remove incentives for bias in reporting of results and to help ensure the public that research agendas are not determined by corporate interests. Science education for the general public—formal and informal—should emphasize the expectation of intellectual honesty in its treatment of the nature and methods of science. It serves little purpose to impress upon students the steps in “the scientific method” if those steps do not reflect a commitment to ethical conduct.

McInerney JD, Dougherty MJ. Abusing science . FASEB BioAdvances . 2020; 2 :587–595. 10.1096/fba.2020-00054 [ PMC free article ] [ PubMed ] [ CrossRef ] [ Google Scholar ]

Abuses of Science: Case Studies

Examples of political interference with government science documented by the UCS Scientific Integrity Program, 2004-2009

Published Aug 4, 2014

From its beginning in 2004, the UCS Scientific Integrity program spent the next five years collecting over 100 stories of scientific integrity abuses from a variety of government agencies. Linked below are some of the most compelling—not to say outrageous—of these stories: tales of interference, suppression of data, muzzling of scientists, the well-traveled "revolving door" between industry and public service, and the stacking of scientific advisory boards.

The next generation

Unfortunately, attacks on scientific integrity and science-based policy are not just a historical footnote. While some progress was made under the Obama administration, problems continued , and under the Trump administration they appear to be getting worse. In 2017, the Center for Science and Democracy began compiling new stories of attacks on science . 

Issue area key : Env = Environmental issues; NS = National security; PC = Pollution and contamination; PH = Public health; — = other

Agency key : Adm = Administration-wide; CDC = Centers for Disease Control; CPSC = Consumer Product Safety Commission; DOD = Department of Defense; DOE = Department of Energy; DOI = Department of the Interior; DOJ = Department of Justice; DOL = Department of Labor; DOS = Department of State; EDU = Department of Education; EPA = Environmental Protection Agency; FDA = Food and Drug Administration; FEMA = Federal Emergency Management Administration; HHS = Department of Health and Human Services; NASA = National Aeronautics and Space Administration; NIH = National Institutes of Health; NNSA = National Nuclear Security Administration; NOAA = National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; OMB = Office of Management and Budget; OSHA = Occupational Safety and Health Administration; USDA = Department of Agriculture; VA = Veterans Administration.

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Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science

Just as fie is a good slave but a bad master, science too has its positive as well as negative aspects. Science is the most revolutionary thing that has been devised by man. Science does not rely on supposition and imagination but is an organized body of knowledge based on facts. Earth Science was one of the first to be studied and we have come a long way from the days when the Earth was believed to be flat. People are always curious to learn more about the world surrounding them. This has brought about fascinating discoveries and inventions not only in the fields of biology, astronomy, chemistry but in our daily lives too. The vast improvement in the field of medicine the average life expectancy. Diseases like influenza, chickenpox or typhoid are no longer fatal and leprosy and even some forms of cancer are now curable. The crippling disease, polio. Has been eradicated from most parts of the world.

We have better drugs and instruments but men are becoming weak in terms of physique and mind. What an irony of fate it is! Today, we suffer from sensitives ‘ear’, sensitive ‘lung’ and a sensitive ‘liver’ due to fast speed, smoky atmosphere, and dusty roads. So, science makes making happy with its latest achievements but it also makes us unhappy when it shows destructive power. Science can be used for gaining happiness but science put to wrong and negative use, can cause unimaginable disasters.

Science has given us such comforts as were unimaginable a few years ago. Today, we switch on the radio and listen to music. We have electricity, telephone, television, washing machines, refrigerators, air-conditioning plants, satellites, cellular phones, metro trains, fast trains, aircraft, and most modern medical systems. All these things have made the life of a man very comfortable. The electric fans, cinemas, cars, trams, mobile phones, and jumbo aircraft are among other scientific inventions and discoveries that have made life easy and comfortable.

The industrial revolution has been a landmark in the development of many countries. Rapid industrialization required more markets and that gave rise to the concept of colonization. Today, the major concern with most developed countries is the management of their industrial waste. More recently, the concern has shifted to the disposal of radioactive waste. Scientists have discovered nuclear energy which is a non-polluting source of energy, but there has been an increase in the number of disasters caused by radioactive waste. Cases like Chernoby! Hiroshima-Nagasaki and the Bhopal Gas Tragedy highlight the ill-effects of nuclear energy. Though presently it is the best alternative for the increasing requirement of energy, we cannot overlook the increasing requirement of energy, we cannot overlook the ever-increasing use, or rather misuse, of nuclear energy and development of sophisticated and powerful nuclear weapons.

Science has progressed in both the domains-constructive as well as destructive. The latest triumphs of science try to remove the evils of disease and death. These have also increased the threat to human life. On the destructive side, science has invented weapons that are most dreadful and disastrous. The inventions of laser beams, neutron bombs, and hydrogen bombs have increased the chances of human destruction. If these weapons are put to use, they would spell disaster for the entire mankind.

One of the most frequent and popular questions which are often asked is, “Are scientific inventions making us happier?” Science has made life easier for men. Telecommunication and technology have made the world, not just a small place, but a tiny world. We can talk to a person across the world sitting in front of our webcams, we can send pictures and videos in minutes over the net and we can carry a world of information in a tiny microchip. However, we must keep in mind that wrongful exploitation of science can result in disastrous consequences like nuclear wars, high levels of atmospheric pollution and a widespread loss of life and property.

As modern age is of science, man has become calculative and mechanical. Science is advancing and it is thwarting our civilization. In the kingdom of science, words like love, affection, and sentiments are fast becoming alien. So what is the use of science for man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul? Spiritualism is on the wane while materialism is on the rise. Philosophy, culture, and poetry are fading from human life because of the rapid advancement of science.

Therefore, the opinion remains divided on the science is a boon or bane. No one claims for certain that science is complete happiness or an impending curse. However, the latest triumphs and victories of science need to be properly utilized, otherwise, they can bring certain death and destruction to the human race.

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Essay On Uses and Abuses of Science

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Use of science brought about a great change:

At the dawn of civilization man developed a scientific outlook. With the help of science he made observation and experiment, though they were crude at first. he discovered the relationship between a cause and its effect. He discovered some secrets of nature. He came to know the use of fire. With the help of it, he cooked his meal and scared the wild animals. Then he came to know sowing and planting. He discovered the conditions for seeds to sprout.

He discovered the process for tending plants. He grew crops and stored the surplus. He came from cave to cottage and from cottage to pucca house. He knew the tending of useful animals and put them to his service. He made many works of invention. He grew cotton were due to proper uses of science.

Modern use of science: Uses of science are now inseparable even from out dayto-day life. With the help of science and technology we have made pin to space-craft. We have made highly complicated machines for large-scale productions. We have conquered over time and distance. We are conquering disease and sickness. Radio and telecommunications, XRay and electricity, rotary and railways are all the works of science. So at present the uses of science are many and varied.

Abuses of science: Modern man has begun to abuse his scientific knowledge, invention of atom bomb is the burning example of it. Abuse of science will lead to destruction of mankind.

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The use and abuse of science and technology: rethinking dual-use

• 23 October 2018 1 March 2019

For over a decade now, I have be rolling around the concept of dual-use in my research, much like how a kitten plays with a fluff ball in the sunbeams of a room. What is the term? I’m mildly interested in it, though it might appear to some others that it’s all I focus on. I like rolling it around, batting it about to see how it will react. I also notice how different it appears in different lights. When I’m engaged in research on security concerns in nuclear settings, the duality presents itself as that between energy production and weapons production. In computing/cyber, it is between defensive and offensive applications. In conventional export controls, it is between civil and military applications.

Many of these contexts for understanding what the ‘dual’ is in dual-use shifted after 2001 to incorporate a focus on terrorism as an ‘other’ category. Perhaps this has been taken up most strongly in biology, where an initial focus on the ‘dual-use dilemma’ of biological research was laid out in the 2004 Fink Report, Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism , focusing on how “the same technologies can be used legitimately for human betterment or misused for bioterrorism” (p. 15).

Ten years ago, I would have said that all of these ways of understanding dual-use are curious, and that they all pivoted towards terrorism in the same way, given their different starting points, was even curiouser.* In my research now, I am pivoting to thinking about the limitations of the concept of dual-use itself. Why focus on duality at all?

To work through this question, in the last week or so I have turned back to Foucault, particularly to his lectures on “Society must be defended” . I’ve been really taken with his analysis of the othering that is at the heart of the construction and normalisation of power, regardless of whether that power is centered around a sovereign or distributed throughout a society. “Dual-use” as a term in use today, especially in biology, has been developed, however unconsciously, to structure a group of potentially unruly people (scientists and bioengineers) around a set of practices that employ themselves in the process of governing security concerns in the life sciences. The point that most people don’t know what the ‘dual’ is in ‘dual-use’ when first introduced to it is a very sly tactic to ‘reveal’ to that person a whole world of biosecurity threats that sit beneath the thin veneer of intended beneficial use of advances in biology. This world of threats is presented as real, as definitely out there and in need of constant vigilance to keep at bay.

It is a process of indoctrinating students and researchers into the current dominant narrative of biosecurity governance. The duality, in its general form, might then be considered as a balancing not of military and civil applications of science and technology, but as balancing ‘use’ and ‘abuse’. Normalising researchers into a biopolitics of biosecurity is about creating a system of relations between them and the rest of society that governs themselves. ‘Abuse’ here can then refer to non-socially sanctioned uses of biology. Is it ok for DARPA to be developing biotechnologies? Is it ok for companies to be developing massive synthesising capacity when capacity to understand things like pathogenicity are still not clearly known? Whether these are uses or abuses of a line of innovation can only be answered within particular epistemes.

Characterising the concept of dual-use this way, we can more clearly see a stumbling block that isn’t very widely acknowledged in biosecurity governance right now: to define what constitutes an abuse of power of biotechnology is to agree on the terms of reference for the debate. Do we? There seems to be broad, though perhaps more tenuous than some would like, consensus for not using biology as a weapon (the Biological Weapons Convention). But where novel biological security concerns are going to come from is not entirely clear. A system of governing based on bright lines around known objects of concern, like the American policies on Dual-Use Research of Concern , relies on a central authority to define a threat, but on a distributed network of practitioners to internalize that threat and govern themselves. Many of them, however, do not perceive the threat in the way the state does, and what do you do about threats that are not yet known?

There are two different understandings of security that are at play in the dual-use debate these days: one that has a clear authority searching for the objective list of objects of concern and clear examples of what will happen when rules about their use are disobeyed; and one that has a network of varying levels and kinds of awareness and attention to security governance of science and technology, coupled with a situated and responsive responsibility for addressing concerns as they are identified. I don’t think we yet appreciate the radically different forms of governing these are based on.

* We are indeed going down a Lewis Carroll rabbit hole.

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• DOI: 10.1080/03064229908536585
• Corpus ID: 144212000

The uses and abuses of science

• Published 1 May 1999
• Political Science, Sociology
• Index on Censorship

3 Citations

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Essay on Uses and abuses of  science in 200 – 300 words

Essay on Uses and Abuse of science:

We are living in the age of science. Scientific inventions have revolutionized human life. They have brought about remarkable changes in our ways of living and make the world a better and happier place for us.

Science has made our domestic life comfortable. Science has discovered many useful things. The invention of the Gramophone, Radio , Television , Cinema , Computer , etc.  has added to our pleasure and made life interesting.

Science has reduced human labour. It has invented various machines for different kinds of jobs. Machines sweep and cook for us. Electric fans and coolers protect us against the heat of summer. Refrigeration and cold storage have helped the preservation of food articles and make possible their exchange between different countries.

Science has proved to be a great blessing in agriculture , industry , and in fields of medicine and surgery . It is no more a thing of surprise that electricity can be produced from the wind.

Besides all this, science has also invented bombs , guns, missiles, etc. These things can prove destructive if they go in the hands of some foolish people.

So, science is both, useful and harmful. If we use it in a proper way, it can make our life happy. But always remember that the wrong way use of science may very dangerous for the world.

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Essay on Uses and abuses of science in 200 – 300 words PDF

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Essay on Uses and Abuses of Science.

Introduction:

In the primitive age, man was living like a savage. he did not know how to wear a cloth. He did not know how to make fire and cook his food. He did not know how to make a hut or a house.

Image Source: azed.gov/wp-content/uploads/IMAGES/Science.jpg

He did not know how to speak. He did not know how to read and write. But gradually by the use of science he developed a great civilization.

Use of science brought about a great change:

At the dawn of civilization man developed a scientific outlook. With the help of science he made observation and experiment, though they were crude at first. he discovered the relationship between a cause and its effect. He discovered some secrets of nature. He came to know the use of fire. With the help of it, he cooked his meal and scared the wild animals. Then he came to know sowing and planting. He discovered the conditions for seeds to sprout. He discovered the process for tending plants. He grew crops and stored the surplus. He came from cave to cottage and from cottage to pucca house. He knew the tending of useful animals and put them to his service. He made many works of invention. He grew cotton were due to proper uses of science.

Modern use of science:

Uses of science are now inseparable even from out day-to-day life. With the help of science and technology we have made pin to space-craft. We have made highly complicated machines for large-scale productions. We have conquered over time and distance. We are conquering disease and sickness. Radio and telecommunications, X-Ray and electricity, rotary and railways are all the works of science. So at present the uses of science are many and varied.

Abuses of science:

Modern man has begun to abuse his scientific knowledge, invention of atom bomb is the burning example of it. Abuse of science will lead to destruction of mankind.

Conclusion:

Abuse of science can be checked by creating a strong public opinion all over the world. Leaders of peace should keep alert and active to do the needful in this respect.

Note: This article/essay is written in easy words for School Students Only.

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World Drug Day report highlights spike in drug use, increased trafficking

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The UN agency tackling crime and drug abuse (UNODC) released its annual World Drug Report on Wednesday warning that there are now nearly 300 million users globally, alongside an increase in trafficking.

The  International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, or World Drug Day, is commemorated every year on June 26 and aims to increase action in achieving a drug-free world.

This year’s campaign recognises that “ effective drug policies must be rooted in science, research, full respect for human rights , compassion, and a deep understanding of the social, economic, and health implications of drug use”.

Ghada Waly, Executive Director of UNODC , said that providing evidence-based treatment and support to all those affected by drug use is needed, “while targeting the illicit drug market and investing much more in prevention”.

New threat from nitazenes

Drug production, trafficking, and use continue to exacerbate instability and inequality, while causing untold harm to people’s health, safety and well-being. — Ghada Waly

In the decade to 2022, the number of people using illicit drugs increased to 292 million, the UNODC report says.

It noted that most users worldwide consume cannabis – 228 million people - while 60 million people worldwide consume opioids, 30 million people use amphetamines, 23 million use cocaine and 20 million take ecstasy.

Further, UNODC found that there was an increase in overdose deaths following the emergence of nitazenes – a group of synthetic opioids potentially more dangerous than fentanyl – in several high-income countries.

Trafficking in the Triangle

The drug report noted that traffickers in the Golden Triangle, a region in Southeast Asia, have found ways to integrate themselves into other illegal markets, such as wildlife trafficking, financial fraud, and illegal resource extraction.

“Displaced, poor and migrant communities” bear the brunt of this criminal activity and on occasion are forced to engage in opium farming or illegal resource extraction for their survival; this can lead to civilians becoming drug users or fall into debt at the mercy of crime groups.

Environmental fallout

These illegal crimes contribute to environmental degradation via deforestation, toxic waste dumping and chemical contamination.

“Drug production, trafficking, and use continue to exacerbate instability and inequality, while causing untold harm to people’s health, safety and well-being,” UNODC’s Ms. Waly said.

Cocaine surge and cannabis legalisation

In 2022, cocaine production hit a record high with 2,757 tons produced – a 20 per cent increase from 2021.

The increase in supply and demand of the product was accompanied by a surge of violence in nations along the supply chain, especially in Ecuador and Caribbean countries. There was also a spike in health problems within some destination countries in Western and Central Europe.

Similarly, harmful usage of cannabis surged as the product was legalized across Canada, Uruguay, and 27 jurisdictions in the United States, much of which was laced with high-THC (delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol) content - which is believed to be the main ingredient behind the psychoactive effect of the drug.

This led to an increase in the rate of attempted suicides among regular cannabis users in Canada and the US.

The hope for World Drug Day

The UNODC report highlights that the “ right to health is an internationally recognized human right that belongs to all human beings , regardless of a person’s drug use status or whether a person is imprisoned, detained or incarcerated”.

UNODC’s calls for governments, organizations and communities to collaborate on establishing evidence-based plans that will fight against drug trafficking and organized crime.

The agency also hopes communities will assist in “fostering resilience against drug use and promoting community-led solutions".

Essay on Uses and Abuses of Internet

Students are often asked to write an essay on Uses and Abuses of Internet in their schools and colleges. And if you’re also looking for the same, we have created 100-word, 250-word, and 500-word essays on the topic.

Let’s take a look…

100 Words Essay on Uses and Abuses of Internet

The uses of internet.

The internet is a powerful tool that has revolutionized our world. It provides us with information, communication, and entertainment. We can research any topic, connect with friends, and enjoy movies or games.

The Abuses of Internet

In conclusion, while the internet offers numerous benefits, it’s crucial to use it responsibly to avoid its potential pitfalls.

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250 Words Essay on Uses and Abuses of Internet

Introduction, uses of internet.

The internet has democratized access to information, breaking down geographical barriers. It has made education more accessible, with countless resources and online learning platforms available at our fingertips. It has also revolutionized communication, enabling instant interaction across the globe. The internet has made business operations more efficient, from online banking to e-commerce. It has also provided a platform for creative expression and entertainment, with platforms like YouTube and Spotify.

Abuses of Internet

However, the internet’s misuse is a growing concern. Cyberbullying, identity theft, and online harassment are rampant, causing psychological harm to individuals. The internet has also facilitated the spread of misinformation and fake news, leading to societal discord and distrust. Additionally, it has given rise to internet addiction, affecting individuals’ mental health and productivity. The proliferation of explicit content is another issue, impacting the moral fabric of society.

In conclusion, while the internet has myriad benefits, its misuse can lead to serious consequences. It is crucial to use this tool responsibly, promoting digital literacy and ethical online behavior. As we stride further into the digital age, we must strike a balance between leveraging the internet’s potential and mitigating its pitfalls.

500 Words Essay on Uses and Abuses of Internet

The advent of the internet has revolutionized the world, bringing about profound changes in the way we live, learn, and work. It has become an integral part of our lives, providing us with a plethora of information and services at our fingertips. However, like any other invention, the internet also has its share of uses and abuses. This essay explores the beneficial aspects of the internet and its potential pitfalls.

Uses of the Internet

The internet has also democratized education. Online learning platforms, digital libraries, and educational websites have made knowledge accessible to all, regardless of location or financial status. It has also facilitated research, with a vast amount of information available on any conceivable topic.

Moreover, the internet has transformed the business landscape. E-commerce has opened up new markets, enabling businesses to reach customers globally. It has also made financial transactions more straightforward and faster through online banking and digital payments.

Abuses of the Internet

Despite its advantages, the internet is not without its downsides. One of the most prevalent abuses is cybercrime. This encompasses a wide range of malicious activities, from identity theft and fraud to cyberstalking and cyberbullying. The anonymity that the internet provides can be exploited by unscrupulous individuals to harm others.

Additionally, the internet can be a source of addiction. Excessive use of social media, online gaming, or other digital activities can lead to internet addiction, negatively impacting mental health and personal relationships.

If you’re looking for more, here are essays on other interesting topics:

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