Comprehension Check Activity (10 points). The Medawar Lecture ‘Is Science Dangerous?

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Module 1 Section 1. Introduction to Science, Technology, and Society

Name: Sañosa, Carl Angelo C.

Course/Section: CE B23 Date Submitted: 8/18/19
Instructions: After reading Lewis Wolpert’s The Medawar Lecture 1998 ‘Is Science Dangerous?’,
reflect and answer the following questions.
1. Obligatory Question – What did Lewis Wolpert mean when he stated that ‘reliable scientific
knowledge is value-free and has no moral or ethical value’ (p. 1254)?
- For me, he meant that science is a base of knowledge that has no value compared and has no harm to
every living thing when not applied with technology or other specific factors that can harm people. A
reliable scientific knowledge alone is an opportunity for us to grab to understand everything we know
and we don’t know. It is a knowledge that every person living in this world must have to not just to
help improve the world, but to change it for a better version.

2. Free-Choice Question (Choose one only. Encircle the letter of your choice before answering.)
a. Why is the conflation of science and technology a serious problem according to Wolpert?
b. How is the social responsibility of scientists distinct from those of ordinary citizens? Cite
two specific situations where this distinction become apparent.
c. How is Eugenics a classic example of the perversion of scientific knowledge?

- Because the study of Eugenics altered the balance between human races. By wanting to improve
races, by being eager to rise among others, they neglect the less suitable for their own costs.
Eugenics did contribute a big part for being the Americans as the one of the most powerful races
in the world. Because of eugenics, they we’re improved, they we’re prioritized. Leaving the less
suitable races not having the chance to prove what they truly are. Eugenics gave birth to racism,
discrimination, and poverty. It let the equal be unequal.

3. Obligatory Question - Why is there a need to encourage ordinary citizens to learn more about
science?

- Because science affects everything. It tackles about life, cycles, ecosystems, and all of the things that
we’re known and soon to be known. We need to encourage ordinary citizens to learn more about
science because they are also a product of science. For them to understand one another, not only by
heart and mind, they need to know what science is behind that person. Science meaning the facts
about you, your characteristics, your stand in life, everything that science can be involved of a person.
We all need this to understand not only the people, but also that entire world that we’re living to.