On April 15, 2010 a report of BBC News signed by the journalist Jonathan Amos, assured that the President of the United States, Barack Obama, announced that “it should be possible to send astronauts to orbit the planet Mars by the mid-2030s and return them safely; a landing on Mars will follow…”
This announce reveals the great development reached until now by the science and technology but it is a good opportunity also for to reflect about the challenges that man has not resolved yet.
The first objective of the science and technology should be to conquer the Earth. There are four key fields where a most effort might be made:
1. Agriculture development.
2. Environment protection.
3. How conciliate the technology and the need of create new jobs.
4. Defeat of the illnesses.
Those are critical areas where the science and technology would help to improve the quality of live of the people, especially in the underdeveloped nations, where is concentrated the world population.
1. The agriculture development encompasses some basic tasks, like the followings:
a) To reduce the consumption of water because is in this productive sector where the consumption is most.
b) To increase the crops yields and the production of food.
c) To guarantee a best and fair distribution of the food production to benefit especially at the poorest and hunger population of the world.
2. The environment protection encompasses:
a) To reduce the desertification phenomenon and to preserve the forests.
b) How to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions especially in the coal and petroleum industry. In this sense the experience of Norway in their North Sea oil fields is very important because they have reduced their emissions of CO2 in 40 percent of the global average. That example might be considered by the industry in other places of the world.
c) What to do for avoid the oil spills in the oceans that cause a severe damage to the environment.
d) How to improve the methods for the nuclear garbage and the industrial waste disposal.
e) How create new methods for a best use of the energy sources.
3. The creation of new jobs encompasses:
a) To identify those activities where may be created the most number of jobs and to carry out them. This is one of the most sensible areas because of the reduction of the employments in the world as a consequence of the substitution of the workers by machines.
4. The defeat of the illnesses encompasses:
a) To make possible the access of the total world population to the health resources.
b) To advance in the scientific research to find the cure of the most graves illnesses.
c) To spread information about the advances of the science in the discovering of new medicines and curative methods. The human beings have the right of to know those discovering. There are people that assure that the medicine and the pharmaceutical industry have the remedy for some illnesses but that they do not present those medicines because their business would result affected. I do not believe that that is true but, in any case, the commercial interest should not be the most important. I think that, on the contrary, the pharmaceutical industry and the health sector might obtain the same or perhaps most benefits if the discovery of new curative and preventive medicines and procedures be developed.
Definition
According with the OECD Frascat Manual, fifth edition, 1993, paragraph 20, page 5, quoted by STATS.OECD, “…Scientific and technological innovation may be considered as the transformation of an idea into a new or improved product introduced on the market, into a new or improved operational process used in industry and commerce, or into a new approach to a social service…”
Origin of the progress
The innovation is the base of the human progress. But the innovation is linked to the level of education of the nations. A person may have a natural capacity but that is not enough. The natural vocation must be complemented with the formal knowledge. The developed nations reached that level of scientific and technological advance because they had an important amount of creators, people with natural intellectual abilities and a great research capacity.
Many factors influence the intellectual capacity. One of the most important is the quality and quantity of food available in each country and their distribution between the people. In an impoverished country with food scarcity it is very difficult the biological and intellectual development of the population. In change, in the countries with abundance of food is different.
The developed countries have had abundance of food. The underdeveloped nations have had restrictions in this sense. This explains the difference in the level of progress between both.
So that for the construction of a best world, first of all, it is necessary to develop a solid agriculture for producing and distributing the food that the human beings need to live. Without food nothing is possible; for that reason the first priority of the world should be the production and fair distribution of food.
Wealth and knowledge distribution
Until now the distribution of the scientific and technological knowledge has followed the same pattern of the wealth distribution. For breaking that circle it is necessary a great effort. The creation of new institutions of research in the underdeveloped nations is very important. The support to the individual researchers is too very positive. It is necessary to develop a mechanism for to spread the ideas of the unknown creators, because in any mind and in place of the world might be a good idea, something that may help the progress of humanity.
Number of researchers
According with the World Bank, World Development Indicators 2010, Finland is the country with major number of researchers per million of people, followed by Iceland, Sweden, Japan and Singapore as you can see in the table.
The figures confirm that the most developed nations concentrate the most number of the world researchers; by group of nations the Nordic countries are the main.
In the next table you can appreciate the contrast between the most advanced nations and the Latin American countries.
That is the reality that should be modified; the underdeveloped nations should increase the number of their researchers and direct its attention to those problems that most affect those countries. It is the local solution of the problems a way for the global advance of humanity. The regions or countries might create their own scientific and technological methods for to resolve their own problems. Of course, the paper of the global science and technology is something essential, but should exist too the appropriate local or regional contribution.
Cultural duality
It is the coexistence of the most advanced scientific and technological advances with the most precarious and savages forms of live. If you visit some regions of the world you can appreciate that duality. For example some tribes of the Amazonian regions still live in the Stone Age but in those regions you can find, in turn, instruments of the modern civilization.
There are also educated and apparently civilized people that, nonetheless, in their attitudes and mind still live in the Stone Age.
Conclusion
Man is conquering the space but still he has not conquered the Earth. Three big problems deserve the attention of the world leaders: the poverty, the lack or scarcity of natural resources and the damage to the environment. They are politics, economics, scientific and technological problems. The political economy might give a very important contribution but the science and technology must provide the other part. There are concrete problems that need answer: the water scarcity, the pollution, the nuclear, industrial and cities waste disposal, the destruction of the forests, the desertification, the hunger, the poverty and the unemployment.
The objective of the sciences must be the human beings happiness.
What do you think?
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