Scientists
are not responsible for negative impacts of their discoveries
Over the past few decades, it has been
argued whether scientists are not responsible for negative impacts of their
discoveries. Some might argue that scientist must be responsible for negative effects
of their own inventions or findings, while others might believe differently
from that statement. However, I am
utterly convinced that the negative results and effects of scientific
discoveries do not hold scientists responsible. Actually, I have a couple
of reasons to support my opinion and, I will explain and develop them in the
next following paragraphs.
First
and foremost, whether a result of a scientific invention or theory is good or bad
mainly depends on the intentions of the users.
Discoveries of scientists can result in positive impacts when it’s in good
hands and used the right way, but bad hands that use the discoveries in
disorder can turn the tables upside down. Although some people might say
that scientists must be responsible because they are the ones that know their
own discoveries the most, being very aware of a discovery’s power can be
useless when it goes into the wrong hands. To give an example of this, the movie ‘Iron man’ shows a rich
genius man named Stark who used to own a big company that produced and sold
nuclear weapons. Stark made a lot of money and got a lot of fame for his
inventions because his own creation was one of the most dynamic weapons in the
world. However, after time, he experiences what his weapons brought about: war
and death. He realizes that the world was moving further away from peace and
closer towards destruction by his discoveries and inventions. He later on
closes his weapon producing company and starts making devices that could save
the people dying in war. He makes a greater impact, but never could he erase
the guilt inside his heart because his bad intentions were responsible of all
the destruction. When his intentions changed into something good, his weapons
were the antidote of destruction. Like this, Stark’s awareness of his weapons and
discoveries itself is not responsible of subsequent negative impacts. His next intentions
and the intentions of his customers were more responsible.
Moreover,
much more negative impacts of discoveries hold companies that sell them
responsible. Scientists are just people who provide theories, inventions and
data, not the one who sells things without any warning in the prescriptions. Companies that sell dangerous items and products solely for money
are one of the main reasons for negative impacts later on. Although some
people might say better products will emerge and accidents will reduce if
scientists are responsible, there will be barely any scientific discoveries
shared by scientists if they all need to be responsible even for the misleading
ways companies sell their inventions. To
give an example of this, one company in Korea sold a very popular
humidifier a few years ago. It was such a big hit that almost everyone had at
least one of the company’s humidifiers. However, this humidifier revealed to
have a chemical included in it that could interfere with people’s respiratory
system. Since most people sleep with their humidifier on through the night,
some became greatly ill and some even lost their lives. The main reason of this
happening was because the company did not inform or warn their customers about
the humidifiers’. They only wrote the positive side about it. The scientists
themselves were not mainly responsible for this happening because they never
hid the truth about the item. The company was the one that hid the truth from
the consumers. Some might argue that accidents will be reduced once
scientists take more responsibility, but scientists’ role is to find out the
facts in science, and companies’ role is to sell safe products with honesty. Therefore,
the negative impacts that come about a product do not hold scientists
responsible.