Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Science and us

I was attending a class on ethical science the other day and this thought came into my mind. I have the impression that science started out as a study into nature and how it affects us as human beings. The aim of science then was to learn more about nature so that we as human beings can learn how to better live with nature. However, somewhere down the road of history, the aim of science started to wander off... the aim was no longer for us to better live with nature, but rather how to make nature work for us human beings. Instead of learning to live with nature, we started to learn how to make nature work for us.

Our ancestors have lived thousands of years with nature. Why are we breaking away from tradition and making nature work for us instead? Are the conveniences offered by our exploitation of science really conveniences, or have we become slaves to those conveniences of science, such that we can longer live without them, and continue to put in more effort to fuel them?

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