Is it really more important to allocate money for immediate social problems than to spend it on long-term research for future? The speaker claim so. I concede that solving these urgent problems will contribute to reducing the unsteadiness of society. Otherwise, in my perspective, spending on long-term research that help future generations is more important.
Admittedly, we face large amount of immediate social problems, which may cause a disturbance, such as the spread of AIDS, abuse of drugs, poverty and so on. Failing to address these problems will easily immerse the society in chaos and people are in a state of panic. For example, South Africa, where about six million people have HIV, has to face the severe adversary, AIDS.
Aside from the foregoing proviso, however, I fundamentally disagree with the speaker's claim. First of all, these long-term researches that are helpful to future generation are usually relevant to the safety of a country, the social wealth, even the global environment. Although the long-term research results are usually not apparent in a short time, they will usually make a significance influence upon society, the human beings, and even the earth. Global climate change is drawing more and more public concern. Calculations indicate that thermal expansion cannot be the sole factor responsible for the observed rise in sea level over the last 40 years; significant discharges of polar ice must also be occurring. Besides, Indonesia's environment minister announced this year that scientific studies estimate about 2,000 of the country's lush tropical islands could disappear by 2030 due to rising sea levels. These results will severely extend influence on the safety of the island countries and greatly affect the global economic structure. Therefore, we have to carry out these long-term researcher on how to reduce the effect the global climate change.
Secondly, the results of long-term researches may help to stimulate the solving of the immediate social problems. Problems usually have some nature relationship and we should not isolate them from each other. The results of long-term research are some stimulative factors to solve social problems. Many scientists are trying to research how to preserve forests resources, which greatly contribute to global climate. While researching the forests , we have already made effort to solve social problems, for example the spread to epidemic. Today, over 100 pharmaceutical companies and several branches of the US government, including giants like Merck and The National Cancer Institute, are engaged in plant research projects for possible drugs and cures for viruses, infections, cancer, and even AIDS. Consequently, when we invest in the long-term research, we have already endeavored to solve these existing social problems, which are the speaker concern. Besides, these long-term researches that might help future generation not only greatly contribute to our offspring, but benefit the humans in the contemporary time.
I conceded that when the fund is limited, it is entirely appropriate to allocate money for immediate social problems such as assisting these people suffering from the flood, than to spend it on long-term research. Yet , to postpone long-term research funding until we completely eliminate exist social problems amounts to fantasy. For new social problems is always emerging.
If our human beings can not care more about the coming future, we will face much intractable problems such as the severe ecological disasters, the wide spread of epidemics, safety of food and so on. Consequently, I believe spending more on long-term research is a sensible choice. For it benefits both contemporary persons and the future generation.