What we read
We have now read both "Long-distance Care" (Bixby & Scanlon, 2013, p. 59) and "Do We Know Too Much?" (p. 61). As usual, the authors now invite us to respond critically to the ideas from both readings.
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Bixby and Scanlon's questions
The questions that ask us to respond to both readings are:
- Are all advances in science and technology good for humankind? Why or why not? Give examples to support your ideas.
- What might be some long-term consequences of so many medical developments that continue to extend human lives?
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Reference
- Bixby, J. & Scanlon, J. (2013). Skillful Reading & Writing, Student's Book 3. Oxford: Macmillan Education
I think it's difficult to say whether all advances in science and technology are good for humans, in particular for our human species, Homo sapiens, because the word "good" is very vague. This is why I like Bixby and Scanlon's suggestion that we give examples: when we look at concrete, specific examples, that can help us to decide whether a particular advance is good or not. But even then, the issue can be more complex. Most people probably think that the invention of nuclear weapons is bad, but actually, I think that they were good for us. Because these weapons are so massively destructive, they have never been used in war since their first use by the United States in 1945. One result of nuclear weapons, which could easily wipe out our species, has been the most peaceful period on our species history. There has been no major war between large nations since the end of the Second World War, and that has saved millions of lives and a fortune in wealth that has been put to developing the world - both very good results of nuclear weapons!
ReplyDeleteMy topic seems similar to yours, although it is in different side. I am thinking that the nuclear usage is a double-edged sword, since they have both advantages and disadvantages. If people use it in a good intention, they will have a huge benefit to use. However, if people use the nuclear with a bad intention, they would be harmful.
DeleteI really like your idea about the nuclear weapons. It is very interesting and I have never thought about it in that way before.
DeleteAlthough science and technology have been developed on the purpose of humankind, they may cause harms. The diagnosis of medical disorder from an accurate genetic testing usually impair patients in a psychological manner, thereby worsening their conditions and shortening their lives. As we commonly know, white lies are sometimes preferable.
ReplyDeleteMedical developments for extending humans' lives have certain negative long-term consequences. With the constant birthrate and limited space of shelters, the population will become more and more dense. Humans may even compete for foods and adequate healthcare. These all drive down the quality of life in the community as a whole. As a result, medicine should be developed at a decent pace.
Although I disagree with Nan's idea that the population might dangerously grow, I like his first idea that there can be psychological problems from learning too much. I hadn't thought of it, but if we learn that there is a problem and can't do anything, it might be better not to have known. Many women, for example, do not have Angelina Jolie's wealth so could not easily take the steps she did to prevent cancer.
DeleteI can understand the idea that we should worry about increasing population, but in fact as countries develop, birth rates drop, and in countries such as Japan and South Korea, the population will soon becomes smaller than it is today because so few children are born.
My idea is different from your idea but the thing that you mentioned in this paragraph is really interesting. You've mentioned about the population of humankind, which is a thing that I've missed to think about, so I agree with your point that the medical development may cause the problem about the population of people.
DeleteI think all advances in science and technology good for humankind. Nowadays, the development of science and technology provides so many advantages. As an example, people can use DNA's test to identify a person and it's also useful for the prediction of disease in both human and animals. Moreover, the medical development will help the humankind in the future. It will be very useful for doctors and patients to find the cure for some disease. It could save life of human who is suffered with the disease or injury.
ReplyDeleteExactly. Even daily medicine therapies such as influenza vaccines are also the results of the advances in science and technology that you discussed above.
DeleteWhat about the invention of IT that allows bad governments to monitor all citizens all the time? Is that a good technological advance? China already has something like this in place, although not as invasive as it might easily become.
DeleteFrom my point of view, the advances in science and technology can be good and bad for human at the same time, depending on the intention to use it. Some case uses it for criminal so this case will be dangerous for human.
DeleteAll advances in science and technology are good for humankind including the invention of TNT. Advances in science and technology usually make our life better, for example, papers which allow us to take notes, telephone which make two people from a far place can talk to each other. However, some advances can make our life worse, for example, TNT, guns which some people use it to hurt or kill other people, which aren't an inventor's purpose.
ReplyDeleteI like your example of advances in technology. I have heard that TNT had been initially used for construction, but when the time past we can see their actual effect in the war. It is very terrible.
DeleteNowadays, science and technology have been developed so much that we can get even many advantages from them. However, although we start developing many of the technology from the intention that we would like to improve human's life, some of them might start leading to the bad side in a day. To give you an idea, the nuclear was initially developed to used in the plant or firm to give us an energy to produce product such as irritation or electricity, so human seems to get all benefits from this finding. In contrast, this kind of technology is later used as a energy in the war, especially to kill another human.
ReplyDeleteAccording to continuously scientists' experiment about medical development, the really long-term consequent that we can easily see from this development is human would live longer and healthier than before. Our planet might have more old-aged people.
Advances in science and technology are good for humankind if we use them in the right way. For example, genetic engineering can be used to predict and prevent diseases that humans may catch in the future or even make humans immune to a lot of diseases. But if these advances in science and technology are used in the wrong way, it may cause major troubles. In the future, terrorists may invent some genes which make their body very strong to fight the police. This may look unreal and it only happens in a sci-fi movie nowadays but when looking at the rate of improvement in genetic engineering advances in the past few decades, I think it may be possible one day in the future.
ReplyDeleteAnother long-term consequences of so many medical developments that should be concerned is that it would make human live longer and there would be an increase in the world population. So we need to concern about the resources that may not be enough for everyone such as oil. Humans should also concern about finding new and reliable resources.
I really like your idea about terrorists use the advantages of technology. However, in another way, police could use this technology to help them do their work.
DeleteIt can be said that science changes our life, from the first time that we can light up the fire until now that we can go to space. We live our life more convenient and longer. Anyway, What we do somehow can consider to be an effort to control the nature which we can't. The advances in technology give human advantage as same as trouble. We can travel by car which is faster and easier that horse but also causes air and sound pollution. We built many weapons to protect ourselves and ens up kill a million of people.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that science give us benefits but it also give us causes.
DeleteI like Paeng's fire example: it helped our species to kill of lots of other species, and even to kill off all of our related human species. Was this good or bad?
Deletei think killing is the way of nature but what make the real problem is we kill to much other species while other can't kill us. Predator in nature can kill other but they have weak point like they give birth just one or two babies which control their number. Human, can kill other, can't be killed by other, continue to increase and live longer.
DeleteNowadays, the development of science and technology never stop and its still developing in the way we do not know until it shows us. In my opinion, all the advances in science and technology is good for humankind for example in what we have read is genetic testing and telesurgery which can makes people understand what symptom is and how can they get this disease. These two examples can show us about the developing in science and technology.
ReplyDeleteI think advances in science and technology are good for people. They can help many people from their diseases in a short time. For example, telesurgery can surgery patient that is in a far place by a robot.
ReplyDeleteI think all the advances in science and technology are good for human kinds because it can help to change many thing in our life and it also develop the technology to produce more scientific things that are very important for us such as the genetic testing. It is a very good way for us to check how likely for us to have a genetic disorder. If we don't have this testing some patient might find out that they have the diseases when it's too late.
ReplyDeleteThe long term consequences of so many medical developments that continue to extend human lives, I think that if we use too much of a medical development it might have a negative consequences to our body.
I would say that not all advances in science and technology are good for human being. Humans is currently the most intelligent animal, so we have a power to control and create many thing, but It may be no longer anymore as we can see that some artificial technology like AI has a potential to think and analyze being more effective than humans.
ReplyDeleteEvery advanced technologies always has their own side effects. For example, medical technology which can extend human live can cause insufficient resource problems as well because the resource is limited, but the number of humans will increase.
I agree that any technologies have both sides, good and bad so, sometimes it depends on us which side we choose to use it. Also like you said there, medical technology extend human life while the resource continue to decrease because of us. Does Long live human will be dangerous for another animals or even our planet?
DeleteI agree with you that every advances of science and technology have side effects, for example, many tree have been cut down to make papers. I think human is the most intelligent animal because AI isn't an animal and human invents AI.
DeleteThe advanced science and technology have been rapidly growing for many decades. Its development history can tell us about the result of consequence that effects to the humankind. For the humankind, some kind of them are good and some kind of them are bad. One of the good example is the artificial intelligence that we can use it many industries such as banking, retail, healthcare. In case of healthcare, we use AI to be the call center to explain how to use medicine to the patients that are really good thing. However, the bad thing is that AI cannot answer the complicated questions.
ReplyDelete