A race's afoot

The latest craze in Science is to solve 2 problem, the energy crisis and global warming. Usually in the domain of physics and chemistry, we now have a new contestant in the race - biology.

The physics head start on the race is obvious, it's position is that energy solves everything, although we agree on that, the question of where to get the energy keeps popping up. Knowing that uranium will deplete someday in the future, research is being done on a virtually unlimited fusion supply source, other methods also include harnessing more energy from the sun, but that's about it for energy supplies that last for at least 5 billion years.

Chemistry's slogan is prevention is better than cure, while physics sought to use energy to cure all these problems, chemistry seek to explore new substance to use that would reduce/eliminate the problem. Although this doesn't help much in the energy crisis, it is effective for combating, or rather preventing, global warming. Plastics have been replaced time and time again we new better materials, and greenhouse gases can be absorbed before they escape.

So what does biology have to contribute to solving these problems? Here comes the latest news. We are finally able to engineer artificial life. How this helps is that we can manipulate bacteria so that they can be able to eat greenhouse gases, and maybe transform the waste product into renewable sources of energy, which the waste originally came from. Raw resources will then be able to be replenished at speeds so fast that they become renewable.

Who will win the race? Only time will tell, or maybe it won't if we're all dead if problems are not solved. (I really hope it's the first one)

But the big question is, why is there a race in the first place? Yes, the planet is dying and all that, yadah, yadah... but then the race should be Science against time, and not among the components of Science.

Well, the whole reason is because there's a flaw in the way Science is funded. (As the cold war ended, interest in Science dropped, because of lack of Russian threat) Money is kept by universities unless research can be justified, and what other better way can it be justified than saving the entire human race. However that goes entirely against the ideals of free Science, Science shouldn't be just constrained by the government to practicality, Science should be able to practice freely, explore whatever it can explore just for the sake of discovery. By limiting science, governments are just dooming themselves to the chances of failure when something big crops out.

The whole idea of a race is due to the fact that whoever wins it will also receive prestige. There exist a competition between Sciences for the winning over of the public. If any one of them manages to save the world, the goodwill earned by it will be enormous. Goodwill then translate into more students and more funding. Of course if more resources was allocated to the Sciences, there would probably be no need for competition.

Science shouldn't be an enterprise, it should be something that can be done as freely as speaking, and not just subjected to allocated funding. Yes, research is expansive, but gone are the days where people can just sit at home and devise theories. Modern theories requiring extensive experiments to back them up, not just some thought experiment, if we want to get anymore new Einsteins, we will need to give promising people the chance to experiment freely. Just like how you can't get free lunches, you can't expect to get free theories to be ready whenever you need them. To limit scientists' pursuit of their dreams is in the end just self-defeating in the race against time.