Science and Freedom

Science and Freedom

1. From our human beings has been existing on the earth, confronting challenges from diversity of aspects, it is the advancement of science that enable us to tackle with all the serious trials and tribulations raised in our development. To be further more, the progress we have accomplished on science established what the World we now depend upon to survive. As a result, we are free from restrictions, which have prevented all the other species from being capable when natural disaster would destroy them.

2. Having referred to the devotion that science contributes to us, how can we relate it to freedom? Seen on the surface, it seems that they have nothing to do with each other. But as a talented philosopher put it『most people are too engaged in trivial things to notice natural or social mystery ,science and freedom are actually intimate. Only by the power of science can the engine of train transporting us to freedom be propelled. On the other hand, whether science is able to achieve significant breakthrough one after another without too many barriers is determined by whether society have ability to create a democratic and free political environment, promote national awareness of vital role acted by science for national future ,even the human beings future. The latter two measures cannot be taken under tyranny or dictatorship.

3. Before Germany world famous philosopher Carl Marx completed his profound but also brilliant theory with assistance from his life long friend, none of others had ever illustrated the relationship between science and freedom exactly. In accordance to Marx』s theory, we went through four periods on the way to modern society. Each of them is represented by what tool we use to produce – whoever has fundamental knowledge on history can easily list it – the Stone age ,the Iron age, the Industry age ， the Information age. In addition, the tool we capitalize symbolizes to which level science rises. In other words, the pattern of our society is linked to science.

4. Followed by four unique ages, it』s the increasing freedom we procured from science.

5. At the time sharp stone was widely applied to various activities such as hunting and weaving. Though almost all of us participate in heavy manual labor, the prosperity we generated is merely sufficient to satisfy what were essential to sustain our lives, let alone entertainment, education or medical service. Under the specific circumstance, there is very few choices we can select expect typical life style which means stepping out of cave to struggle for necessary substance by united strength since the Sun rises from horizon and then returning the cave to which he or she oriented belong as the soft moon light accompanied by unlimited stars shines the dark sky.

6. Apparently, through the descriptions deduced from what Anthropologists have discovered, people living in that time must have been strongly limited by how to not suffer starvation day after day until they went to graves. It is hard to attach freedom to them, throughout their entire lives, what they acquired was just that they used to be a human being.

7. Despite the fact that Stone Age is the infant time filled with violence and cruelty, based on the experience and primary productive technology accumulated in this long period, human beings hardly get rid of this time.，

8. Then, iron, a more efficient tool, took place of stone. What it brought about is not only extra social substance prosperity but also a series of reform and improvements.

9. Being distinctive from primitive society .Where nobody had privilege over others, people』s social status varied from one to another, revealing a variety of social classes had come into being. Those who grasped extra social wealth gradually instituted government operated for their benefits. We give a definition to them as governor who were the first to be free from manual labor .From then on，mental labor and manual labor are divided。As to the few upper class，what they devoted to mental labor leaded us to civilization-language created，education developed，city emerged，culture prospered.

10. Among those refulgent ancient civilization，the most have disappeared without any trace as time flies .Fortunately，archaeologists discovered masses of culture relics which are of great value during last century，some old legends passed down generation by generation in form of literature or oral stories describing what happened very long ago in detail were indentified. Having been buried for thousands of years，the latitude that our ancestors reached in civilization reflected by exquisite life style，high efficient administration ，and the immortal architecture remaining nearly perfect even today shocked the world once being shown to public.

11. On the contrary，the majority of people were compelled to exert all their energy on the farmland usually owned by the upper class so as to provide affluent wealth to governor，which in turn satiated few people『s luxury live and infinite requirements for kinds of enjoyment，while what were left for labors is always beneath basic living standard. A direct consequence of this miserable living condition is that people 『s average age is less than 40 years, which means a large number of people died of lack of food ,diseases, extreme exhaustion especially when the climate is bad for agriculture –the great famine recorded by historians resulted in destructive catastrophe to famers. Besides all of that, male citizens must undertake military obligation –If a governor who controlled the sovereignty was eager to spread territory and conquer other nations, uncountable troops would be eliminated. Wars and natural disasters constituted two devastative forces that had killed millions of people during this period.

12. Everything has its concrete reason and solution. The social phenomenon can』t be an exception. Due to the low productive force caused by backward science. The majority had to undertake agricultural production, and the minority occupied most of social wealth to enjoy high quality live at the expense of farmer』s miserable life.

13. To summarize, no matter how severe predominant people』s life is, the Iron Age is still an important leap for us. After all, this revolution liberates some people, making it possible to liberate more people in the future.

14. Eventually, the really magnificent time –the Industry time came in 19^th century. It has estimated that the social prosperity manufactured in this time is more than 200 times than the total social wealth we yielded in last thousands of years. What is more revolutionary is that more and more people were transformed into workers marking the formation of a new social class –the worker class. In western developed countries, an ordinary worker』s life is far better than any emperor.

15. It is machine that make what is narrated above occur. For instance, only two percent of American population take part in agricultural production, but with the help of machine , the crops that they produced every year are not only abundant to satisfy American need, but also exported to countries which are shortage of crops to earn profit.

16. If anyone simply considers worker and machine are all about the Machine time, he or she is totally wrong. High efficient production resulting from machine liberates people from farmland and leaded them to factories. At factory, even every worker works only 40 hours a week, what they produced is enough to maintain society operated regularly. As a consequence, the worker class has access to education, entertainment, politics, etc. When they approach to these realms, they started to realize that they should have been given more right, more money, and more freedom. Obviously, they are reluctant to submit, the revolution struggling for freedom spread all over the world, united workers established work union as agency negotiated with government or their boss. If their demand is refused, they would stop all the work and demonstrate on the street. In the early time, government never gave in; regardless of worker』s wide spread action, violent force such as police were often sent to drive away gathering workers. Violent may win the battle contemporarily, but once people』s awareness had been awakening, the combat would not be ended unless they are entirely free. Finally, government subdued, the freedom workers obtained can』t be imagined by any previous time.

17. In this time, there is still another thing that must be referred to-human being have successfully converted the theory of relativity into practice-the enormous power of atomic bomb shocked the world after two cities of Japan destroyed by energy released from the nuclear of atom .Since then, the project like the Manhattan Project was operated in many countries because no one was willing to be threatened by this terrible weapon. In 1949, the Soviet Union ignited her first atomic bomb. Followed by this trend, up to now, 7 countries have mastered this technology. Under this special condition, no matter how brutal politicians are, they will never risk pressing nuclear weapon』s enter. The typical example is offered by the Soviet Union and America. Both of them had quantities of nuclear weapon like nuclear submarine, nuclear missile, atomic bomb, etc, as we know ,the cold war between them lasted for decades of years, even to this extent , neither of them has ever utilized it for military aims, not because they spared no efforts to create a peaceful world ,it is the consciousness that the nuclear weapon occupied by either side were enough to destruct the Earth for many times that matters- the power of science protect us from the third World War by putting the main forces of the world into balance.

18. So peace and development gradually became the world』s theme, especially after the cold war, the military budget diminished sharply, many high technologies used to be solely applied to military now were exerted to improve people』s live , government invested major GDP to public affairs – medical service , education, fundamental facilities, welfare , assurance, scientific research . Then, the advent of the Information age or knowledgeable economy time would be a matter just of time.

19. There is no doubt that modern high technology and science played an irreplaceable role in this process. Automatic technology and robot controlled accurately by computer liberate thousands of workers from factory forever, factories without any worker is being built around the globe. People evolved in professional occupations increased rapidly. Knowledge is increasing at an astronomical speed, the knowledge created in 20^th century make all the achievements we gained before lose its bright light. The concept that science is the first productive force has been commonly accepted, it is also in this time that scientific career is no longer few scientists personal interest.

20. The giant power of science stimulates government to concentrated prominent scientists and engineers in various realms to take up specific task for national profit. The moist famous representative is the Apollo Plan. Since the Soviet Union sent the first manmade satellite to outer space , the US government determined to catch up with it and even go further in universal exploration at any costs, the present president ,Eisenhower said an well known sentence 『how can we fall behind a socialism country in science and technology, is there any problem in our education ? It is shameful for American . Afterwards, the US government took a series of measures to realize their goal. NASA was founded in 1958. The budget containing 20 billion (In 1960^th , it was a astronomical number) for scientific research was passed by Congress and Senator, all the students were inspired to study subjects related to universal exploration, when Kennedy took office in 1960, he announced to the whole world that 『We ,American , will go to the Moon in ten years, not because it is easy, because it is hard』, declaring officially that the Apollo Plan was switch on ever since. 20 thousand factories , 200 top universities, most talented scientists and engineers , centering around NASA ,worked day and night to admit American promise to the world. IN 1969, the 11^th Apollo spaceship , undertaking American dream, after farther of American space program, Fong . Brown, pressed the red enter, followed by bright fire, marched into space. 3 days later, the video recorded how Armstrong walked on the surface of the Moon was transmitted to earth. Science proved her strength again. Not considering the narrow national concept, from another perspective to view the Apollo Plan , Her success opens a new time-the Great Science time.

21. Now, we are all experiencing this time, enjoying high quality life originated from science. On the other hand ,our fathers and grandfathers witnessed all of this . In 1990^th , the international space station ,another splendid project , aimed at constructing a advanced space laboratory served for everyone, not a single country, through several countries 『s utmost industrial department and scientific institutions , was perfectly sent to the orbit précised designed for her. It is a milestone in scientific history.

22. Setting aside nationalism , lots of controversial issues closed tied to every country』s benefit, problems resulting from religion, we, human being, hold together to go all out to solve serious events , not defined in space program , also including environmental protection, energy crisis and so on, emerged from economic growth.

23. A harmonious , united world can be predicted in the prospective future , the ideal society that has been assumed by Chinese ancient philosopher ,confusion have come true in some parts of the world. In November 1993, the treaty on European Union (known as the Maastricht treaty after Dutch town where EU leaders met) came into force , creating the EU and paving the way for greater integration between member states . From then on, the rights of European citizens were further extended, so that today, citizens of Member States may travel, reside, work and carry out transaction in any country of the EU without hindrance and with full protection of the law.

24. .what propels this historic progress directly is a revolutionary tool, computer. Her vast ability to store ,transmit, calculate information based the foundation for modern science and technology(all the resplendent projects that have been mentioned above must face a large amount of data to be dealt with, it would have taken thousands of years to calculate if our brain had been harnessed to complete it, it is just calculating , let alone clarify ,summarize, get the final result.

25. As to individual, through the Internet, infinite information covering all the subjects is available to everyone (in the past, very few people had opportunity to harness knowledge passed down from ancestors). Whoever is ambitious enough has potentiality to make his or her value enlarged to the extreme extent, That is why knowledge keeps increasing at an amazing speed for decades of years.

The step of history is still advancing. Where will our freedom point to? How will we tackle with a series of severe problems deteriorating day by day? 20 or 30 years later, torch will be passed down to our generation, born after 1990, enormous challenges are waiting for us, we have no plea to escape, only for the simple reason – we are human being, we belong to this specie. If on the day we are going to die ,we can declare proudly that in our time , people acquired more freedom owing to the scientific progress ,we are at last free ,too.
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