Science: To Kill or to Cure

[Lombardian]

Alright Nerdfighters, next week my English class is having debates, and my topic is whether or not science has a greater capability to kill, or to cure. I'm arguing that it has the greater capability to kill (not that I necessarily agree with that, it was just the luck of the draw). I'm somewhat stuck for ideas on how to best debate this.

What do you guys think?

[Kenny]

Either way it was incompetence in the government that allowed this to happen. In America we have strict regulations around nuclear power plants making sure nothing goes wrong, and we would never let a bunch of amateurs be left alone running one.

[danman]

They were not a bunch of amateurs, it is just that they did not know a few very specific pieces of the thing, and that a bunch of bad events hapeened together,

I am so sure that in america you are so awesome, that three mile island core meltdown never happened etc. If it did not have a concrete shell , it would have been a worse disaster than this one

Besides after the accident newer reactors are not vulnerable to this kind of error anymore

[Kenny]

At 3 mile island there was an error that resulted in about a dozen people getting the equivalent of a chest x-ray, and the media felt like blowing it way out of proportion.

[danman]

A meltdown happened only it was contained due to the way it happened with relation to the reactor structure.

In USR the same old meltdown happened but in such a way that it was not contained.


If you ride a bicycle without holding, and do fine, while i ride it properly and break a leg. it by no way means my driving style is more dangerous.

THere are thousands of such reactors, some even in my country and they work just fine

[Kenny]

Hey, I'm not saying that the entire soviet/Russian government is eternally incompetent, I'm just saying that that Chernobyl was caused by incompetence.

And 3 mile island was only a partial meltdown, not a full one.

[Decepticon]

I find it kind of funny that Kenny is like, "We have all kinds of safety regulations here to prevent Chernobyl happening," which INCLUDES putting a concrete shell around the reactor core, and you're like, "Yeah, well it only wasn't bad because you had a concrete shell."

Or in other words:

Kenny: We have methods in place to stop meltdowns and to stop any meltdowns from being serious.

You: Yeah, well you only didn't all die in 3-mile island because of your methods.

Everyone Else:

[Jim MacDougal]

You could argue that all our greatest scientific achievements have their roots in war. Before we had rockets to the moon we had V2's launched at England. We split the atom, not for power or propulsion systems, but or the bomb. Most of what we know about time keeping and astronomy comes from the need for warships to navigate. Even mundane innovations such as margarine and canned food were invented for the military. War has always driven innovation. And what was mankind's very first invention? The sharp rock - which our ancestors used as a weapon.

[Ryan Davison]

um if you want to say that it has more capability to kill then you can you can go on about how science is power and now that power is very great and it can easily end up in the wrong hands. you can say that it has more capability to kill because you can have mass killings but not mass savings. idk if that works at all. sounds like you have a tuff one

[danman]

you can say that it has more capability to kill because you can have mass killings but not mass savings

Hmm, have you ever heard of a case of variola infection (small pox) or lung tuberculose? Science is what helped eradicate or nearly eradicate those. Same goes for pertussis, whooping cough and others
Also thanks to Soviet scientists in 1920s, there are not much more epidemies of pulmonary plague (white death) in western asia states - a disease which although curable by science is very lethal due to rapid progress and ambiguous first symptoms.

Furthermore thanks to science there are no famines in europe, america and most of asia


You can still argue that those are just potential savings.

Fine, It then follows. Do you know anyone with diabetes? Without science, they would be dead.

Do you know anyone who had appendicitis, pneumonia, ulcers, tied intestines, strong diarrhea, or just stepped on a dirty nail (deep closed wounds)

If they live it is due to science, since most of these things spelled death just 100 years ago (the last due to tetany)



If you then claim science incapable of mass savings you are an ignorant. There so far was no application of science causing more death and suffering (in terms of population %) than the plague epidemic in europe

[Joey Joe Joe Jr. Shabadoo]

The point, however, is to help Lombardian with the debate. Norman Borlaug, an agricultural engineer, saves possibly over a billion lives with science, but that's not helping Lombardian win the debate.

[danman]

well, that can be, but if he argued as suggested that it is capable of mass killings but not mass savings, or similar, he would get a 0/1/5/F depending on the marking system in your country.

A good argument path would show the capabilities , because as it was stated, killing IS the easiest, but also would mention the actual increases and betterment of life due to science

Anyway he was assigned this position and it is for school so i doubt he has strong enough eristics to outright win the argument in a onesided way - the teacher hopefully knows at least as much as me.
I do not know how it is in the US but where i went, a logically or factually inconsistent opinion in an essay made you lose marks

[thedragonfruitking]

fyi tb is coming back to the UK :( i'm not sure why but some people i know have blamed the immigrants