the government should support the scientific research even there is no practical

[EricaLIN]

Hope someone could give me some advice. I really appreciate. ^^

Do you agree that the government should support the scientific research even there is no practical use？

With the rapid development of our society, there are increasing numbers of people who are concern about whether the government should invest the unrealistic scientific investigation. Some people assert that the public wouldn’t benefit from those useless studies, while others have opposite attitudes toward this controversial idea. Despite many diverse opinions aired by different individual based on their personal stances, there can be no doubt that the government should pay more attention to the research with specific and practical purpose.

First of all, our government is given authority to allocate the tax revenues, therefore, they should regard the citizens’ welfare as main policy priority instead of supporting impractical researches. Since many people are living under severe financial stress in my country, the public servants have to figure out how to improve the living conditions of the poor or offer healthcare welfares to the elderly and so on. As you can imagine, many developed countries are bound to confront aging society crisis in the future. Thus, our government should put more effort into executing useful policies to prevent those kinds of problems. That is why I am greatly convinced that the government shouldn’t put extra money on impractical study.

In addition, some government funding may be transferred from the meaningful and applied scientific research to the unrealistic scientific investment. That is to say, many practical researches would be not supported owing to those meaningless projects. To put this point into an actual context, many universities face acute shortage of funding problems recently and this critical issue would result in numbers of scientific development delay. In this way, schools would not want to purchase the latest cutting-edge apparatus which play the significant role in the technology development and some potential students would not have financial aid. There is no denying that our government should put more emphasis on those meaningful projects.

Admittedly, there are some creative idea may seem not practical at first but turn into a breakthrough invention. For example, a German scientist invented X-ray and this useful apparatus could allow doctors to make an accurate diagnosis and look inside the human body. However, I insist that the government has to contribute to the practical studies due to the numerous benefits it would bring about.
.
By and large, taking all the aspects into account, I hold that the practical research could lead to better living conditions and environment and all the general public would gain tangible benefits from it. Therefore, I believe that it’s not too exaggerated to say that the government should allocate the limited money properly and take the citizens’ warfare more seriously.

TOEFL listening discussions: A conversation between two university professors

[Luschen]

Hi, I think your essay is really well written. Personally, I would have focused more on investing in research vs all the other things the government could do with the money - infrastructure, welfare, medical care, economic development etc. You did this in the first paragraph, then switched to funding useful research vs funding non-useful research. As you say, I think it is very hard to differentiate between which research will be practical and which won't. So it really isn't fair to say that only useful research should be funded - I think all scientists believe the research they personally are pursuing is useful and valuable.

[EricaLIN]

hi~Luschen
Thanks for your advice. Those suggestions are very imoortant to me. ^^
Erica