GRE写作Issue模拟题3:How To Spend Money?

I agree with the speaker's broad assertion that money spent on research is generally money well invested. However, the speaker unnecessarily extends this broad assertion to embrace research whose results are "controversial," while ignoring certain compelling reasons why some types of research might be unjustifiable. My points of contention with the speaker are the fundamental objectives and nature of research, as discussed below. I concede that the speaker is on the correct philosophical side of this issue. After all, research is of the unknown for true answers to our questions, and for lasting solutions to our enduring problems. Research is also the chief means by which we humans to satisfy our insatiable appetite for knowledge, and our craving to understand ourselves and the world around us. Yet, in the very notion of research also lies my first point of contention with the speaker, who illogically presumes that we can know the results of research before we invest in it. To the contrary, if research is to be of any value it must explore uncharted and In fact, query whether research whose benefits are and predictable can break any new ground, or whether it can be considered "research" at all. While we must invest in research of whether the might be controversial, at the same time we should be circumspect about research whose objectives are too and whose potential benefits are too speculative. After all, expensive research always carries significant opportunity costs--in terms of how the money might be spent toward addressing society's more immediate problems that do not require research. One apt illustration of this point involves the so-called "Star Wars" defense initiative, championed by the Reagan administration during the 1980s, this initiative was ill-conceived and largely a waste of taxpayer dollars; and few would dispute that the exorbitant amount of money devoted to the initiative could have gone a long way toward addressing pressing social problems of the day--by establishing after-school programs for by AIDS awareness and education, and so forth. As it turns out, at the end of the Star Wars debacle we were left with gang violence, an AIDS epidemic, and an unprecedented federal budget deficit. The speaker's assertion is troubling in two other respects as well. First, no amount of research can completely solve the enduring problems of war, poverty, and violence, for the reason that they certain aspects of human nature--such as aggression and greed. Although human genome research might eventually enable us to engineer away those undesirable aspects of our nature, in the meantime it is up to our economists, diplomats, social reformers, and jurists--not our research laboratories--to these problems. Secondly, for every new research breakthrough that helps reduces human suffering is another that serves primarily to add to that suffering. For example, while some might argue that physics researchers who harnessed the power of the atom have provided us with an source of energy and invaluable "peace-keepers," this argument flies in the face of the hundreds of thousands of innocent people murdered and maimed by atomic blasts, and by nuclear meltdowns. And, in fulfilling the promise of "better living through chemistry" research has given us chemical weapons for human slaughter. In short, so-called "advances" that scientific research has brought about often net for humanity. In sum, the speaker's assertion that we should invest in research whose results are "controversial" begs the question, because we cannot know whether research will turn out controversial until we've invested in it. As for the speaker's broader assertion, I agree that money spent on research is generally a sound investment because it is an investment in the advancement of human knowledge and in human imagination and spirit. Nevertheless, when we do research purely for its own sake without aim or clear purpose--we risk resources which could have been applied to relieve the immediate of our dispirited and disenfranchised members of society. In the final analysis, given finiteeconomic resources we are forced to strike a balance in how we those resources among societal objectives.