The importance of Science

Amigos frequentadores do blog, hoje venho trazer um texto escrito por mim (in english) sobre a importância da Ciência para a sociedade. Foi um texto escrito para uma competição do instituto Weizmann, mas infelizmente não fui selecionado T.T
Anyway, o que valeu foi o aprendizado conquistado durante as minhas extensas pesquisas sobre o assunto. Como dizem por aí, o que vale é a viagem, não o destino. hehehe

People nowadays are so busy using the developing technology that they don’t care about what made such development possible: Science. If you pay attention, you’ll see that science actually is everywhere, playing a vital role in society. It offers the tools to analyze and solve our problems, thus improving life’s conditions. We were only able to make it from the Stone Age and the discovering of fire to the Genome Project today because of science.
But it has done much both for good and ill. E.g.: horse-drawn carriages replaced by cars. The automobilist development led to rises in the amount of vehicles on streets and deep changes in society. Such up-grades were only possible because of researches. The levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and slung diseases increased. However, through scientific researches mankind developed treatments for many diseases and means of controlling global warming are under research. People need to be engaged in scientific issues to understand the dynamic of the world.
Science really moves us towards the future, but it is more than a tool for progress. It is a gorgeous masterpiece and scientists are artists who shape it with test tubes and gowns instead of paintbrushes and smocks. Its different branches represent groups of scientists who develop, each one on a way, that unique magnum opus named science, through which we improve our lives.
It plays a major role also on the strategic agenda of countries. After all, nations’ competitiveness lies on their cultivation of students able to deal with science to develop new technologies, coping with the challenges that strike the world daily. Developed countries use researches to keep on top, and developing ones may use it to get there and improve harvest techniques to increase the production and generate incomes. As a consequence, labor automation lead to reduced uses of human effort, increasing unemployment rates. Maybe a solution is to create new jobs to employ those workers, to make the machineries maintenance.
Unfortunately, most young students face science as dull and narrow, reflecting today’s teaching method: textbook-based and mainly theoretical. Schools fail to approach science in an interesting way, making us understand the functioning of this complex world and ourselves. Students should get contact with real science, through hands-on experiments and get answers they can trust because they tested it and not because it is a dogma or someone told so. The more we learn, the more eagerly we want to learn. Understanding the rules that govern life should be a disputed opportunity, not a chore. That’s the use of research: Let us learn from our own discoveries and not from other people’s, emerging us from the dark abyss of ignorance to the wide hills of knowledge.
The ISSI experience is of great importance to promote science among young students, providing hands-on experiences, contact with great scientists’ routine and access to on-going researches and the highest technology available. The cultural aspects are also important, promoting global understanding on science and scientific alliances among people of different countries, races and beliefs. As each part of the world will face specific problems, it’s great to promote contact with potential future fellow scientists from all over the world, generating worldwide information circulation. Science can open many doors, otherwise closed, for students. And a participation in ISSI would be an excellent up-grade for my future career and for science in my country, because I want to bring scientific progress for Brazil and help our people.
ISSI proves that progress in seek for selfish progress is not of great value. Scientific development should be done in cooperation and aiming global benefits. Because discovering the greatness of the universe enables us to remember that although small, we’re not alone, so we need to cooperate with each other and contribute for healthy and fair lives for all and respect the planet we share.

Abraços pessoal ;)