Scientists and other researchers should focus their research on areas that are likely to benefit the greatest number of people.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoni

Scientific research is essential ingredient in making of great and prosperous nation. The benefit to large number of people even though much desired, cannot be the touchstone for taking up various research endeavors.

Firstly, large number of basic research projects which have been taken up as secret government projects with no inherent aim of benefiting greatest number of people, have in fact achieved the utilitarian objectives much later. For example, let us consider the Turing machines made by the Alan Turing during world war 2. Their primary purpose was to decode the German secret messages to aid the victory of allied powers. They were never meant to be used for civilian applications. However, in later decades they became the precursor for modern day personal computers which are now playing an important role in everyone's life to the point that they have become indispensable. Thus, the utilitarian value of some the ground breaking research projects cannot be predicted in advance.

Similarly, let us take the example of mars mission launched by ISRO of india. Opponents argued that in a country where millions of people live below poverty line given by the World Bank, what is the need for spending crores on project which does not have any immediate benefit to the common man.However, such an opinion is not right. The fuel technology that was used for rocket to allow it to take the rover to such a long distance, can later be used to decrease the size of the fuel tanks in conventional satellite launch vehicle to increase the size of the payload. This has immense benefit for people at large by improving the quality of their communication devices. If the funding for the project is based solely on likely benefit to large number of people, most of great research projects would not have seen the light of day.

On the other hand, there is responsibility on part of the government to encourage applied research in various fields for benefit of the mankind. For example, most of the advances made in manufacturing vaccines for deadly diseases like small pox, Aids, hepatitis-B, etc. would not have been possible without the emphasis on the need to promote research that benefits the greatest number of people. However, such efforts should not blind us to judgement that only applied research has to be encouraged. As stated in above examples basic research endeavors cannot solely be taken up based on utilitarian objectives as it can be counterproductive in long run.

In conclusion, scientific research should definitely help large number of people. But, utilitarian objectives cannot be sole touchstone based on which most of research is taken up, as they can generate great unintended benefits in long run.