Science is an incredible way of finding and systematizing knowledge that helps humanity maintain a certain level and quality of life. Moreover, science makes peoples’ lives easier, faster, and safer. Due to technological progress, any individual can entrust intellectual brain planning, calculations, programming, forecasting, and many other actions. With the help of genetic engineering, people received drugs and vaccines, which is especially significant in current times, post-COVID-19 pandemic.
A bright example of a brilliant application of science is Luke Bawazer’s research. Luke is working in the laboratory at the University of Leeds and explores new material technologies from living organisms. Using the DNA of such inorganic materials like seashells, bones, and teeth, Luke Bawazer proved that with the help of synthetic biology, these new materials can replace current ones (Bawazer, 2013). Creating the same instruments and reducing the expenses can lead people to get a variety of technological tools with useful electronic functions.
However, some individuals believe in Intelligent Design and reject any scientific proof. Intelligent Design theory claims a creator with supernatural abilities made life on the planet Earth. The founder of the theory is Phillip Johnson who in the 1980s came to this idea after Darwin’s evolutionary theory was published. Nevertheless, if Darwin’s theory had a logical basement and it was proved on species of nature, Johnson’s theory is nothing more than a guess. According to Wilson (2005), the formulation of Intelligent Design is a default argument advanced in support of a non sequitur. Denying the ability of science to achieve new results and present useful and innovative solutions to society, humanity hinders development.
Supporters of Intelligent Design might embrace the scientific revolution and reject Darwin’s theory at the same time. In current conditions, it sounds more like utopia but what people can do is smoothen the gap between religion and technical progress. The majority of people that are not connected with science have a foggy image of what it is. People imagine science as a set of numbers and formulas and do not believe any creativity is needed to open something new. Jacob Bronowski in his essay “The nature of scientific reasoning”, proves the opposite and states that without creativity any scientist has the similar prospect of making a scientific discovery as an electronic brain.
The current issue of people’s unawareness of science leads to the lack of education programs, media, and government’s participation. Engaging humans in scientific processes and achievements can help decrease the firmness of their beliefs and give them a chance to technological progress.
Jacob Bronowski’s view on the scientific process echoes in Luke Bawazer’s research. Luke, for his research, uses knowledge from material science, synthetic biology, and chemistry. The idea that put attention to biominerals and their DNA cannot de called anything else but imaginative and creative. The patience and devotion to the process Luke used while discovering the key gene that encodes needle-like skeletal elements deserves respect. This creative process can encourage other people to new ideas and find motivation in their works. The results of such studies can lead humanity to a new level of life providing electronic devices based on inorganic products due to genetically involved technology.
Luke is also talking about science as a constant creative process of trying to find something new. Founding one gene and some profitable outcomes do not limit the research. One DNA can be cut on millions of pieces and studied from different sides in various conditions so that every gene has a try to give a unique material and profit to people and society. Talking about science from this perspective, it is hard to say that no creation is involved in its processes.
As societies have been changing throughout life, humans’ beliefs and moral principles have been varied. Same does science and its principles: there is a set of axioms that are followed to reach higher steps of the scientific process; however, some innovations and new achievements in this sphere can put under the question the “normal science”, how Thomas S. Kuhn called it. Kuhn (1970) described a shift of a paradigm, or a number of achievements that is well-known and unprecedented, as an anomaly that undermines the basic tenets of the current scientific practice.
In other words, science will always need paradigms; however, the development of it never stands in one place, the world keeps moving on. New creations and research lead to innovative rules and understandings that can put under the question fundamentalism of the paradigms. Humans have to be ready for these constant and rapid changes and accept them. Otherwise, there will not be a possibility to impregnate these achievements in everyday life.
Supporters of “natural” life and nonbelievers in science cannot be pushed to trust its results. Yet, they have to look around and count the number of technological tools they are using to make their life simple and fast. Cellphones, cars, electronic tools in the kitchen, computers have become an essential part of people’s everyday life. Without technology and its progress, humans will barely survive. Medical tests based on PCR, vaccines were created with the help of genetic engineering.
Combined oral contraceptives are used for contraception and treatment of various diseases caused by hormone disbalance. Rejecting all these achievements of science puts individuals back on the evolution path. Education and news spread by media can help break the myths about science and help people understand and respect it better. This is the key issue that needs to be solved in the way of rapidly developing technologies.
References
Bawazer, L. (2013). Genetically evolved technology: Luke Bawazer at TEDxWarwick 2013 [Video]. YouTube. Web.
Bronowski, J. (1956). The nature of scientific reasoning. The McGraw-Hill Companies.
Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The route to normal science. The structure of scientific revolutions, 2, 10-22.
Wilson, E. O. (2005). Intelligent evolution. Harvard Magazine, 108(2), 29.