Science, for example, can tell you how to recombine DNA in new ways, but it doesn’t specify whether you should use that knowledge to correct a genetic disease, develop a bruise-resistant apple, or construct a new bacterium. Science doesn’t tell you how to use scientific knowledgeĪlthough scientists often care deeply about how their discoveries are used, science itself doesn’t indicate what should be done with scientific knowledge. Individuals make those decisions for themselves based on their own aesthetic criteria. Science can reveal the frequency of a G-flat and how our eyes relay information about color to our brains, but science cannot tell us whether a Beethoven symphony, a Kabuki performance, or a Jackson Pollock painting is beautiful or dreadful. Science helps us describe how the world is, but it does not make any judgments about whether that state of affairs is right, wrong, good, or bad. But ultimately, individual people must make moral judgments. That knowledge can inform our opinions and decisions. Science can help us learn about the contexts that help humans flourish and which of our cognitive capabilities are shared by non-human animals. When is euthanasia the right thing to do? What universal rights should humans have? Should other animals have any of those rights too? Questions like these are important, but scientific research will not answer them. With such breadth, the reach of science might seem to be endless, but it is not. And science helps us answer important questions like which areas might be hit by a tsunami after an earthquake, how the hole in the ozone layer formed, how we can protect our crops from pests, and who our evolutionary ancestors were. It has generated the knowledge that allows us to call a friend halfway around the world with a cell phone, vaccinate people against polio, build a skyscraper, and drive a car.
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