Precis Writing on Discriminate Use of Scientific Knowledge

Make a precis of each of the following passages. Suggest a suitable title also for your precis.

In the past one or two decades, we human beings have been assailed by prophecies of calamity. To some, population growth is the most immediate threat. Others make more of pollution of particular kinds, the risk that the world will run out of food or natural resources or even the possibility that economic growth and the prosperity it brings spell danger for the human race. And there is talk of potentially horrific uses for genetic engineering and even of the possibility that the temper of modern science may undermine the structure of modern society. But, although these prophecies are founded in science, they are at best pseudo science. Their most common error is to suppose that the worst will always happen. And to the extent that there are based on assumptions as to how people will behave, they ignore the ways in which social institutions and human aspirations can conspire to solve the most jaunting problems.
Prophets of doom have multiplied remarkably in the past few years. It used to be common place for men to parade city street with sandwich boards, proclaiming, "The End of the world is at hand!”. They have been replaced by a terror of sober people/ scientists, philosophers and politicians proclaiming that there are more subtle calamities just around the corner. The human race, they say, is in danger of strangling itself by over breeding, of poisoning itself with pollution, undermining its essential human character by tampering with heredity and of perverting the whole baste of society 'with too much prosperity.
The questions which these latter-day doomsday men have raised are subtle and interesting; the spirit in which they are asked is usually too jaundiced for intellectual comfort. Too often, reality is over simplified even ignored, so that there is a danger that much of this gloomy foreboding about the immediate future will accomplish the opposite of what its authors intend. Instead of alerting people to important problems, it may seriously undermine the capacity of the human race to look out for its survival. The doomsday conundrum which society has created for itself.
The doomsday cause would be more telling if it were more securely grounded in facts, better informed by a sense of history and an awareness of economics and less cataclysmic in temper.
The defect of the case for thinking that calamity is the more important menace is its impression. There are some who fear that the burning of fuel on the scale to which modern industry is accustomed will wreck the climate on the surface of the earth, but few meteorologists are able unambiguously to endorse such prophecies. Some fear that the use of pesticides will irrevocably damage tine human race but it is an over dramatic statement of the need carefully to regulate the way in which such chemicals are sprayed on crops. Some fear that modern biology, with its artificially fertilized eggs and its detailed understanding of genetic processes, will degrade humanity; by doing so, they fly in the face of the past five centuries of the history of medicine, a consistent record of human endeavour. In short, the weakness of the doomsday prophecies is that they are exaggeration. Many of these are responsible. The flow in their protestations is that they label technology and the science from which it sometimes brings as a subversive force in society. It is true, of course, but most technical innovations will frequently have unexpected and even unpredictable consequences. This has always been the case.
Still more serious is the danger that the extreme wing of the environmental movement may inhibit communities of all kinds from making the fullest use of the technical means which exist for the improvement of the human condition. Insidiously, the suggestion has been advanced that science and technology, are the source of potential environmental hazard. The truth is that the blame, if any, attaches to the decisions that have been made about the uses to which technology should be put. And there is no doubt that as the striking of a comfortable balance between human communities and the environment becomes a more intricate task, science and technology between them have an increasingly important role to play. Worse still, the Impression, quite falsely, has got about that prosperity as such is in danger. Hut the in controvertible truth is that prosperity in the sense now common in advanced socities is also the way in which communities of all kinds are able to afford health services, education and the other social benefits of amenities in advanced communities to which less fortunate people still aspire.

DISCRIMINATE USE OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

There is increase in the number of those who think that doomsday is imminent. Scientists, philosophers and politicians have come to think that potential calamities will befall human race resulting from pollution, food shortage and lack of natural resources. Even the present economic growth may eventually bring about the end of human race. The progress in genetic science is a danger for the survival of mankind. The fear of the prophets of doomsday is unfounded and grounded in fallacy. It is likely that in future man may achieve the opposite of what is often feared. The pessimistic concept of future does not take into consideration the invincible spirit of man. Over consumption of fuel, the use of pesticides understanding of genetic process, technology and science are considered by them as destructive forces. They base their arguments on the potential danger posed by such forces as have contributed to the progress of mankind so far. In fact thinkers should guide the people that the cause of doom does not lie in those forces as have contributed to the progress of society. The real danger is in their misuse and wrong application in wrong direction. Genetic process, for example, will bring about revolutionary changes in the field of medicine. The use of pesticides in a proper manner is not harmful. The extreme views of environmentalists may discourage the use of science and technology for the betterment and prosperity of the developing societies in the field of health services, education and other social benefits.