Although it is understandable for government to be cautious when funding the
scientific research, the argument is to absolute and do not consider the uncertainty
of scientific research. In addition, in order to low the risk of funding scientific
research, not only government, but also scientists and research institutes should
use more reasonable methods to solve this problem.
It is reasonable for government to fund the scientific research carefully since some
research projects probably will spend much money and energy and may not be successful
in the final. So government should be cautious when funding them, which may avoid much
loss. In addition, some scientific research may bring worse consequence. For example,
some scientific achievement will be used as some weapon. Under this situation, government
should be more cautious about them.
However, the argument form the topic is too absolute since they overlook the nature of
scientific research, which is uncertainty. So if government do not fund the research as
long as its consequences are not clear, then there probably are few researches they
could support. Scientific research itself are uncertainty at the beginning and many great
discoveries and technologies are found by accident. For example, Alexander Fleming
discovered the Penicillin during a common experiment. And nowadays many popular
products or technologies were totally unpopular in the past. So if government do not
fund any scientific research because of uncertainty, then the development of science will
stop moving forward. And some terrible problems people will be faced in the future such
as resource shortage probably can not be solved.
Under this situation, government should make sure the investigate of scientific research.
And in the same time, government, researchers and scientific institutes all should try to
reduce the influence from the uncertainty of research. For the researchers, they should
begin the research work after the fully evaluation and understanding of the project.
And obey the academic ethics during the research process. For the scientific institutes,
they need treat fairly all of the scientific projects and monitor them all the time to
make sure the scientific research funds will not be wasted. For the government, they
should give scientists and institutes enough support and patience.
In sum, government should fund promising scientific research even if the consequences
if it are unclear. And in the same time, government, scientists and institutions should
try their best to induce the risk of results since the uncertainty of scientific research.