Solved Exercise for Precis writing with Title “Ethical Approach to Science Precis for Class 9, 10, 11, 12 and Higher classes.

Passages with Solved Precis

“Science has all along been a vital factor in the development of human civilization”. Perhaps, no other branch or human thought could produce such an ‘impressive’ and ‘shaping’ influence on man’s social, moral, economic and cultural life as science did. “Conquest of man’s sheer ignorance was the first achievement of science”, said Bertrand Russell. “Man trained and educated by the Great Teacher-Science” said Tagore, “Occupied his place foremost among all other creatures of God.” The greatest contribution of science to the enrichment of human civilization has been the evolution of an idea of Universal Brotherhood. It enables men living in far-off places, separated by wide and unfathomed seas and high mountains, come nearer and assemble under the common banner cf Internationalism. Radio, for instance, which is one of the greatest and most precious gifts of science, played and is still playing a vital role in exchanging views of the peoples of the entire Globe. Aeroplane, Television, etc. have contributed t ‘left full quota in the building up of the International Federation of Man.

 These and many other gifts of science have added greatly to the dignity and sublimity of human civilization and that, at times, science has been acclaimed as an ‘Angel’ of creative ideals. But at the same time, we cannot shut our eyes at the other side of the picture.

 For example, no one denied that the conquest of air by science was a great-a wonderful-achievement. No one can deny that the Atomic Energy, which is perhaps, the latest gift of science to man can be a beneficent achievement, contributing almost a new life to man. But in the words of Dr. Radhakrishnan, “Man has not, apparently, reached a pitch of decency, sufficient to be trusted with such inviting and terribly destructive products of science.”

Human civilization has been turned into a horrible safe of barbarism by the wrong use of science. The quantity of atomic energy, which was used in the two bombs that wiped off two brilliant cities of Japan-Hiroshima and Nagasaki-could have changed the whole of the African desert into smiling fields and orchards, had it been used for a creative purpose. What an irony of fate!

Says Jones Allen, a great modem thinker and philosopher, “I regard atom as the most powerful symbol of the basic social conflict of our time. The paradox between the immense productive force at the disposal of a man arid the use he has made out of them in modem warfare, tend to create a lot of misunderstanding about the great power of Atom”.

The recent experiments of the nuclear weapons, as we all know, have created a terribly formidable shock-psychological as well as physical, in the minds of the people. According to a report, the first experiment of U.S.A. Hydrogen Bomb in the Pacific Ocean, caused a damage of nearly £1,500,000 to Japanese fishing industry. Besides, it was hardly possible to compensate in money, the loss of the people’s health and psychological shocks. “There can be no greater crime against humanity”, wrote the Washington Post of May 1954, “than the experiments of this kind  The Government and the scientists of the U.S.A. will be branded with the mark of ‘Cain’ for having polluted the water of the Pacific”.

Science, however, is not to blame; it is not science, nor the scientists who are to stand trial before Almighty on the day of Judgement for devastating. His peaceful kingdom on earth, but the real culprits are our political leaders, who, for their own glorification and political grandeur, have misused this greatest gift of Nature for destructive and devastating purpose.

Dissociated from ethics and philosophy, science becomes a religion of power. It’s ideal is to harness the forces of nature:, and it teaches its devotees to discover more and more the sources of power. Just as the miser takes delight in laying up heaps of gold, in the same way science takes delight in the achievement of more and more power. Now, power can be exhibited both in constructive and in destructive terms. Its one expression is the motor car or the railway engine and the other, the machine gun or the tank. Both are the symbols of power which man has gained through the knowledge of science. The railway engine runs with a speed of forty miles per hour dragging a load of hundreds of tone. The machine-gun can kill a hundred persons in a few minutes. It can not be denied that each exhibits in its own way the power which science has given to the man. Religion and ethics draw distinction between the power of good and the power of evil. But for science, the religion of pure power, good arid evil do not exist. At the most it would draw a distinction between power and its absence. Hence, there is nothing in a science itself to forbid the destructive use of the power it gives to man. The religion of power is not the same thing as the religion of goodness.

Precis

Ethical Approach to Science

There can be no doubt that the material progress which followed in the wake of new discoveries and inventions, is the direct out-come of the advance made in scientific knowledge. But, unfortunately, scientific inventions had come to have a double edge. They are not only a source of material development, but have also become potential means of destruction. While it took many decades for the human society to take full advantage of scientific knowledge, inventions like Atom and Hydrogen Bombs and ballistic missiles can make short work of human existence for more quickly.

The urgency of the situation has made the entire world conscious of the need of tempering scientific progress with spiritual or moral values.

It sounds ironical, but it is an undeniable fact that our material progress, based on Science, has done more than any oilier factor so far known in our history to push moral principles to the fore. We hope, however, that our scientists and scientific institutions will not be tempted to divert their attention from serving constructive purposes to the sinister services of destruction being inspired by ethical principles.