政府类 Some people think scientific research should be carried out and controlled by the government instead of private companies. To what extent do you agree or disagree?
The meteoric advancement of modern sciences has spawned a host of boons in our lives. It is no exaggeration that human life has been fundamentally revolutionized by the physical, chemical, biological, environmental or astronomical discoveries and creations over the past few decades. Yet when it comes to who should play the central role in conducting scientific research, different people hold divergent views. Some contend that it is the government, rather than the private firms, who should carry out and regulate scientific research. Personally, I think their view has both merit and demerit.

Granted, the government has a crucial role to play in scientific research. First, corporations are, by definition, entities in constant pursuit of maximum profit at the lowest possible cost. In consequence, corporate scientific research, if left unfettered, often compromises ethics for the sake of shareholder wealth. Only the government has the regulatory and enforcement authority to ensure that scientific research does not trade off public interests for private gains. Secondly, government coordination can help optimize the economic resources allocated to scientific research. Contemporary scientific research often requires colossal amounts of money and substantial researching manpower. Government supervision makes for effective collaboration and healthy competition between companies, warns the private firms about the potential perils of ill-conceived projects and set priorities—in terms of overall societal interests.

Nonetheless, it is manifest that corporate scientific research also holds many inherent advantages. To begin with, given the profit-pursuing profile of businesses, corporate research typically has well-defined guidelines and clear-cut objectives for every mission. Unlike government projects that have to weigh and balance competing interests, company research is almost always focused, well-scheduled, well-budgeted and result-oriented. Secondly, thanks to the supposed profitability of company research, corporate professionals performing scientific research may well find themselves much better rewarded financially than researchers working for government projects. And this fact, in turn, renders these professionals more motivated in their laboratories. Lastly, private firms are mostly more meritocratic and less likely to be bogged down in the bureaucracy characterizing many government agencies. Therefore, corporate research is often more efficient and more productive than its governmental counterpart.

In the final analysis, I concede that government direction can crown scientific research with an ethical compass. Nevertheless, corporate companies hold definite advantages over the government in scientific research with respect to efficiency and productivity. On balance, I am convinced that it should be the private firms who perform scientific research whereas government scrutiny can ensure that these companies are aware of the ethical stakes involved and do not lose sight of the public interests while striving for their goals.