science for human welfare essay

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Science and technology for human welfare and its effect on environment

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The most important application of science

Science is valued by society because the application of scientific knowledge helps to satisfy many basic human needs and improve living standards. Finding a cure for cancer and a clean form of energy are just two topical examples. Similarly, science is often justified to the public as driving economic growth, which is seen as a return-on-investment for public funding. During the past few decades, however, another goal of science has emerged: to find a way to rationally use natural resources to guarantee their continuity and the continuity of humanity itself; an endeavour that is currently referred to as “sustainability”.

Scientists often justify their work using these and similar arguments—currently linked to personal health and longer life expectancies, technological advancement, economic profits, and/or sustainability—in order to secure funding and gain social acceptance. They point out that most of the tools, technologies and medicines we use today are products or by-products of research, from pens to rockets and from aspirin to organ transplantation. This progressive application of scientific knowledge is captured in Isaac Asimov’s book, Chronology of science and discovery , which beautifully describes how science has shaped the world, from the discovery of fire until the 20 th century.

However, there is another application of science that has been largely ignored, but that has enormous potential to address the challenges facing humanity in the present day education. It is time to seriously consider how science and research can contribute to education at all levels of society; not just to engage more people in research and teach them about scientific knowledge, but crucially to provide them with a basic understanding of how science has shaped the world and human civilisation. Education could become the most important application of science in the next decades.

“It is time to seriously consider how science and research can contribute to education at all levels of society…”

More and better education of citizens would also enable informed debate and decision-making about the fair and sustainable application of new technologies, which would help to address problems such as social inequality and the misuse of scientific discoveries. For example, an individual might perceive an increase in welfare and life expectancy as a positive goal and would not consider the current problems of inequality relating to food supply and health resources.

However, taking the view that science education should address how we apply scientific knowledge to improve the human condition raises the question of whether science research should be entirely at the service of human needs, or whether scientists should retain the freedom to pursue knowledge for its own sake—albeit with a view to eventual application. This question has been hotly debated since the publication of British physicist John D. Bernal’s book, The Social Function of Science , in 1939. Bernal argued that science should contribute to satisfy the material needs of ordinary human life and that it should be centrally controlled by the state to maximise its utility—he was heavily influenced by Marxist thought. The zoologist John R. Baker criticised this “Bernalistic” view, defending a “liberal” conception of science according to which “the advancement of knowledge by scientific research has a value as an end in itself”. This approach has been called the “free-science” approach.

The modern, utilitarian approach has attempted to coerce an explicit socio-political and economic manifestation of science. Perhaps the most recent and striking example of this is the shift in European research policy under the so-called Horizon 2020 or H2020 funding framework. This medium-term programme (2014-2020) is defined as a “financial instrument implementing the Innovation Union, a Europe 2020 flagship initiative aimed at securing Europe’s global competitiveness” ( http://ec.europa.eu/europe2020/index_en.htm ). This is a common view of science and technology in the so-called developed world, but what is notable in the case of the H2020 programme is that economic arguments are placed explicitly ahead of all other reasons. Europe could be in danger of taking a step backwards in its compulsion to become an economic world leader at any cost.

“Europe could be in danger of taking a step backwards in its compulsion to become an economic world leader at any cost.”

For comparison, the US National Science Foundation declares that its mission is to “promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity and welfare; to secure the national defence; and for other purposes” ( http://www.nsf.gov/about/glance.jsp ). The Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) states that it “promotes creation of intellect, sharing of intellect with society, and establishment of its infrastructure in an integrated manner and supports generation of innovation” ( http://www.jst.go.jp/EN/about/mission.html ). In his President’s Message, Michiharu Nakamura stated that, “Japan seeks to create new value based on innovative science and technology and to contribute to the sustained development of human society ensuring Japan’s competitiveness” 1 . The difference between these declarations and the European H2020 programme is that the H2020 programme explicitly prioritises economic competitiveness and economic growth, while the NIH and JST put their devotion to knowledge, intellect, and the improvement of society up front. Curiously, the H2020 programme’s concept of science as a capitalist tool is analogous to the “Bernalistic” approach and contradicts the “liberal” view that “science can only flourish and therefore can only confer the maximum cultural and practical benefits on society when research is conducted in an atmosphere of freedom” 2 . By way of example, the discovery of laser emissions in 1960 was a strictly scientific venture to demonstrate a physical principle predicted by Einstein in 1917. The laser was considered useless at that time as an “invention in the search for a job”.

“… we need to educate the educators, and consequently to adopt adequate science curricula at university education departments.”

The mercantilisation of research is, explicitly or not, based on the simplistic idea that economic growth leads to increased quality of life. However, some leading economists think that using general economic indicators, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), to measure social well-being and happiness is flawed. For example, Robert Costanza, of the Australian National University, and several collaborators published a paper in Nature recently in which they announce the “dethroning of GDP” and its replacement by more appropriate indicators that consider both economic growth and “a high quality of life that is equitably shared and sustainable” 3 .

If the utilitarian view of science as an economic tool prevails, basic research will suffer. Dismantling the current science research infrastructure, which has taken centuries to build and is based on free enquiry, would have catastrophic consequences for humanity. The research community needs to convince political and scientific managers of the danger of this course. Given that a recent Eurobarometer survey found significant support among the European public for scientists to be “free to carry out the research they wish, provided they respect ethical standards” (73% of respondents agreed with this statement; http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_224_report_en.pdf ), it seems that a campaign to support the current free-science system, funded with public budgets, would likely be popular.

The US NSF declaration contains a word that is rarely mentioned when dealing with scientific applications: education. Indeed, a glance at the textbooks used by children is enough to show how far scientific knowledge has advanced in a few generations, and how these advances have been transferred to education. A classic example is molecular biology; a discipline that was virtually absent from school textbooks a couple of generations ago. The deliberate and consistent addition of new scientific knowledge to enhance education might seem an obvious application of science, but it is often ignored. This piecemeal approach is disastrous for science education, so the application of science in education should be emphasised and resourced properly for two reasons: first, because education has been unequivocally recognised as a human right, and second, because the medical, technological and environmental applications of science require qualified professionals who acquire their skills through formal education. Therefore, education is a paramount scientific application.

“The deliberate and consistent addition of new scientific knowledge to enhance education might seem an obvious application of science, but it is often ignored.”

In a more general sense, education serves to maintain the identity of human culture, which is based on our accumulated knowledge, and to improve the general cultural level of society. According to Stuart Jordan, a retired senior staff scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, and currently president of the Institute for Science and Human Values, widespread ignorance and superstition remain “major obstacles to progress to a more humanistic world” 4 in which prosperity, security, justice, good health and access to culture are equally accessible to all humans. He argues that the proliferation of the undesirable consequences of scientific knowledge—such as overpopulation, social inequality, nuclear arms and global climate change—resulted from the abandonment of the key principle of the Enlightenment: the use of reason under a humanistic framework.

When discussing education, we should therefore consider not only those who have no access to basic education, but also a considerable fraction of the populations of developed countries who have no recent science education. The Eurobarometer survey mentioned provides a striking argument: On average, only the half of the surveyed Europeans knew that electrons are smaller than atoms; almost a third believed that the Sun goes around the Earth, and nearly a quarter of them affirmed that earliest humans coexisted with dinosaurs ( http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_224_report_en.pdf ). Another type of passive ignorance that is on the increase among the public of industrialised countries, especially among young people, is an indifference to socio-political affairs beyond their own individual and immediate well-being.

Ignorance may have a relevant influence on politics in democracies because ignorant people are more easily manipulated, or because their votes may depend on irrelevant details, such as a candidate’s physical appearance or performance in public debates. A democracy should be based on an informed society. Education sensu lato —including both formal learning and cultural education—is therefore crucial for developing personal freedom of thought and free will, which will lead to adequate representation and better government 5 .

To improve the cultural level of human societies is a long-term venture in which science will need to play a critical role. We first need to accept that scientific reasoning is intimately linked to human nature: Humanity did not explicitly adopt science as the preferred tool for acquiring knowledge after choosing among a set of possibilities; we simply used our own mental functioning to explain the world. If reason is a universal human feature, any knowledge can be transmitted and understood by everyone without the need for alien constraints, not unlike art or music.

Moreover, science has demonstrated that it is a supreme mechanism to explain the world, to solve problems and to fulfil human needs. A fundamental condition of science is its dynamic nature: the constant revision and re-evaluation of the existing knowledge. Every scientific theory is always under scrutiny and questioned whenever new evidence seems to challenge its validity. No other knowledge system has demonstrated this capacity, and even, the defenders of faith-based systems are common users of medical services and technological facilities that have emerged from scientific knowledge.

For these reasons, formal education from primary school to high school should therefore place a much larger emphasis on teaching young people how science has shaped and advanced human culture and well-being, but also that science flourishes best when scientists are left free to apply human reason to understand the world. This also means that we need to educate the educators and consequently to adopt adequate science curricula at university education departments. Scientists themselves must get more involved both in schools and universities.

“Dismantling the current science research infrastructure, which has taken centuries to build and is based on free enquiry, would have catastrophic consequences for humanity.”

But scientists will also have to get more engaged with society in general. The improvement of human culture and society relies on more diffuse structural and functional patterns. In the case of science, its diffusion to the general public is commonly called the popularisation of science and can involve scientists themselves, rather than journalists and other communicators. In this endeavour, scientists should be actively and massively involved. Scientists—especially those working in public institutions—should make a greater effort to communicate to society what science is and what is not; how is it done; what are its main results; and what are they useful for. This would be the best way of demystifying science and scientists and upgrading society’s scientific literacy.

In summary, putting a stronger emphasis on formal science education and on raising the general cultural level of society should lead to a more enlightened knowledge-based society—as opposed to the H2020 vision of a knowledge-based economy—that is less susceptible to dogmatic moral systems. Scientists should still use the other arguments—technological progress, improved health and well-being and economic gains—to justify their work, but better education would provide the additional support needed to convince citizens about the usefulness of science beyond its economic value. Science is not only necessary for humanity to thrive socially, environmentally and economically in both the short and the long term, but it is also the best tool available to satisfy the fundamental human thirst for knowledge, as well as to maintain and enhance the human cultural heritage, which is knowledge-based by definition.

Conflict of interest

The author declares that he has no conflict of interest.

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The Welfare State and Human Well-Being Around the World: A Cross-National Analysis

• Published: 07 December 2023
• Volume 19 , pages 365–380, ( 2024 )

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• Emma Schmidt 1 ,
• Alexander C. Pacek 2 &
• Benjamin Radcliff 1  

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Does the welfare state affect human well-being outside the developed OECD world? For decades scholars have assessed the impact of the welfare state on a variety of outcomes, largely economic and social (for reviews see Kenworthy, Social Forces. 77:1119–1039, 1999 ; Kenworthy & Pontusson, Perspectives in Politics. 3:449–471, 2005 ; O’Connor, Review of Behavioral Economics. 4:397–420, 2017). While more recent focus has shifted to the impact of welfare programs on human well-being, this literature has suffered from several shortcomings. First, there has been an overriding focus on developed core OECD countries. Second, the primary outcome of interest has been on subjective well-being (life satisfaction, happiness). In this paper, we try to address these shortcomings to some extent. First, we extend the analysis to a wider and more diverse sample of countries. Second, we focus on a range of aspects of human well-being beyond life satisfaction. Third, we rely on a new measure of welfare impact that goes beyond mere overall spending—expert survey based coding of social security protections from the global Quality of Government 2021 data set. We find that in our sample of countries, this welfare measure exerts a positive and significant effect on a range of well-being outcomes. Implications for the study of the welfare state and well-being are discussed.

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How Welfare-State Regimes Shape Subjective Well-Being Across Europe

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Appendix A: Countries in Sample

Czech Republic, Slovenia, Slovakia, Poland, Croatia, Kazakhstan, Lithuania, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Albania, Russia, Romania, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Hungary, Latvia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, China, Serbia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Macedonia, Armenia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Costa Rica, Panama, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Singapore, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Guatemala, Taiwan, Uruguay, Thailand, Malaysia, El Salvador, Bolivia, Jordan, Ecuador, Paraguay, Vietnam, Peru, Algeria, Honduras, Turkey, Pakistan, Nicaragua, Indonesia, South Africa, Dominican Republic, Iran, Tunisia, Laos, Lebanon, Morocco, India, Ghana, Philippines, Bangladesh, Egypt, Iraq, Mongolia,, Ethiopia, Mauritania, Nepal, Syria, Uganda, Cameroon, Yemen, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Liberia, Tanzania.

Appendix B: Main Variable Descriptions (Variable code from Quality of Government data base, Basic data set https://www.gu.se/en/quality-government/qog-data ). Original data sources listed below,some of which are also from the QoG version as indicated by *

Principal independent variable, social safety nets (bti_ssn).

1–10 scale based on the extent social safety nets provide compensation for social risks.

Social safety nets do not exist. Poverty is combated hardly at all, or only ad hoc.

Social safety nets are rudimentary and cover only few risks for a limited number of beneficiaries. The majority of the population is at risk of poverty.

Social safety nets are well developed, but do not cover all risks for all strata of the population. A significant part of the population is still at risk of poverty.

Social safety nets are comprehensive and compensate for social risks, especially nationwide health care and a well-focused prevention of poverty.

*Source: Bertelsmann Stiftung Transformation Index 2020 ( http://www.bti-project.org/en/home ). Indices based on questions asked of countries experts on 137 middle and low income countries.

Life Satisfaction

Cantril Self-Anchoring Scale of “best possible life” with 0 as lowest possible score and 10 as highest.

Source: Gallup World Poll, accessed through World database of Happiness (worlddatabaseofhappiness.eur.nl).

Healthy Life Expectancy (who_halet)

Healthy life expectancy at birth (years).

*Source: Global Health Observatory, World Health Organization ( http://www.who.int/data/gho ).

Human Capital Index (pwt_hci)

Human capital index based on years of schooling and assumed returns, based on Mincer equation around the world.

*Source: Feenster, Inklaar and Timmer ( http://www.rug.nl/ggdc/productivity/pwt/ ).

Details on variable construction ( https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/docs/human_capital_in_pwt_90.pdf ).

*Women Political Empowerment Index (vdem_gender).

Index capturing greater choice, agency, and participation for women in societal decision-making. Index formed by taking the average of womens’ civil liberties index, womens’ civil society participation index, and womens’ political participation index.

Details on construction of the index can be found here: ( https://v-dem.net/media/publications/v-dem_working_paper_2015_19.pdf ).

Source: Varieties of Democracy (v-dem.net/en/data/).

Principal Dependent Variables

*Gender Inequality Index (gii_gii): Index (0–1) measures gender inequality in three aspects of human development-reproductive health, measured by maternal mortality ratio and adolescent birth rates, empowerment measured by proportion of parliamentary seats occupied by women vs. men, and economic status expressed as labour market participation rate of women vs. men . The higher the GII value, the more disparities between women and men and the more loss to human development.

Source: United Nations Human Development Reports ( https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/thematic-composite-indices/gender-inequality-index#/indicies/GII ).

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Schmidt, E., Pacek, A.C. & Radcliff, B. The Welfare State and Human Well-Being Around the World: A Cross-National Analysis. Applied Research Quality Life 19 , 365–380 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11482-023-10247-z

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Applying psychology to improve human welfare

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5 ways science is transforming global health and saving lives

Science expands our understanding, makes the impossible possible, and helps us build the future we want for all people. science drives the work of ghtc, so we wanted to take a step back to reflect on five ways science is transforming global health..

Science expands our understanding, makes the impossible possible, and helps us build the future we want for all people. Science drives the work of our Global Health Technologies Coalition, so we wanted to take a step back to reflect on five ways science is transforming global health:

1. Science is generating treatments, cures, and vaccines to tackle the world’s most devastating diseases. 

From a vaccine that has put us at the brink of eradicating polio to antiretroviral treatments that have dramatically extended the lives of people living with HIV and AIDS, science has generated new health technologies that have driven tremendous progress in global health. Thanks to investments in science and research, 82 new vaccines, drugs, diagnostics, and other lifesaving global health tools have been developed and introduced since 2000. These tools include a new meningitis A vaccine —which has already saved 378,000 lives and prevented 673,000 new infections since 2010—and new child-friendly malaria drugs that have helped cut childhood malaria deaths by 65 percent since 2000. Science has also fueled a robust pipeline of over 670 global health technologies now in development poised to further build upon these gains.

2. Science is helping us understand the unique needs of users and communities so we can design the right tools for impact.

3. Science is helping us predict, detect, and track emerging health risks so we can be better prepared to confront tomorrow's challenges.

From using weather patterns to forecast the risk of insect-borne disease outbreaks, to employing genomics and evolutionary theory to predict how bacteria will become resistant to antibiotics, to advancing new hybrid systems that combine crowdsourced data with traditional disease surveillance, science is helping us better predict, detect, and track infectious disease outbreaks and other emerging health challenges. Early detection can make the difference between an outbreak becoming an epidemic and is critical to mounting an effective response.

4. Science is helping us understand what works and what doesn't so we can better target interventions and design health programs for maximum impact. 

How often does an insecticide-treated bed net need to be replaced , and how many tears can it sustain before its stops working? In an era of limited resources, can we predict which technologies and interventions are likely to save the most lives in a country if brought to scale? How do we get people to change their handwashing habits to reduce diarrheal disease and childhood deaths? These are the questions big and small that scientists, data analysts, and other health researchers are working to answer in labs, offices, and program sites across the United States and world. The answers they get are helping us better target health solutions and refine health programming to more save lives and more dollars.

5. Science is putting information and data at our fingertips to help us fight global diseases and health challenges in new and unusual ways.

The revolution in mobile technology, digital health, and big data is transforming our approach to fighting global diseases and health challenges. Health care workers are using mobile devices to track immunization coverage door-to-door and monitor vaccine supplies to prevent stockouts, doctors are using SMS to remind patients to take their tuberculosis drugs and treatment adherence, and health ministries are deploying new data visualization toolsto turn a mountain of data into accessible and actionable information to guide decision on to best deploy and target resources.

Science creates a foundation upon which improvements in global health are built. It unlocks discoveries and fuels innovation, informs policies and programs, breaks down barriers, and ultimately advances better, healthier lives for all people. At this moment in time, it is more vital than ever that we build a convincing case of the benefits that flow from science and the importance of strong investment in science and research.

In global health, science matters because #scienceserves and science saves.

About the authors

Jamie bay nishi ghtc.

Jamie served as GHTC Executive Director for seven years until the end of 2023, leading the coalition’s policy and advocacy portfolio, as well as managing its engagement with GHTC members and other stakeholders and partners in government, the private sector, and civil society. She has over 12 years of experience in business development, project management, stakeholder engagement, and strategic partnership building.

Marissa Chmiola GHTC

Marissa manages the development and implementation of the coalition’s communications activities, overseeing GHTC’s digital presence, media outreach, events, publications, and internal communication practices. She also manages GHTC's monitoring, evaluation, and adaptive learning and donor reporting... read more about this author

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Science and Economics in Human Welfare

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This review of social progress in the principal countries of the world should be studied by those interested in the application of science and economics to human welfare. Dr. Sand quotes impressive statistics from authoritative sources in support of the argument that poverty is the main limiting factor for human progress. Housing, nutrition, medical care and leisure vary with income, and these are the predominant factors determining health, physique and even intelligence. “At all ages of life, at all times and in all countries, physical and intellectual development follow, on the whole, the curve of social opportunity. Descending successively from the independent class to the middle class, the skilled workers and to the labourers, we find that disease and death gather an increasing harvest of human lives.”

Health and Human Progress:

an Essay in Sociological Medicine. By René Sand. Translated from the Author's revised French text by Dr. C. F. Marshall. Pp. x + 278. (London: Kegan Paul and Co., Ltd., 1935.) 10 s 6 d . net.

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Animal welfare science: why and for whom.

Simple Summary

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Fragoso, A.A.H.; Capilé, K.; Taconeli, C.A.; de Almeida, G.C.; de Freitas, P.P.; Molento, C.F.M. Animal Welfare Science: Why and for Whom? Animals 2023 , 13 , 1833. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13111833

Fragoso AAH, Capilé K, Taconeli CA, de Almeida GC, de Freitas PP, Molento CFM. Animal Welfare Science: Why and for Whom? Animals . 2023; 13(11):1833. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13111833

Fragoso, Alessandra Akemi Hashimoto, Karynn Capilé, Cesar Augusto Taconeli, Gabrielle Cristine de Almeida, Paula Pimpão de Freitas, and Carla Forte Maiolino Molento. 2023. "Animal Welfare Science: Why and for Whom?" Animals 13, no. 11: 1833. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13111833

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Essay on “Science and Human Welfare” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Science and Human Welfare

Science has transformed human life beyond all imaginations. Thanks to the efforts of a few scientists, man is no longer a helpless toy in the hand of nature , but the proud master of the three worlds of land, air and water. Science has changed our outlook, our mental makeup, our thoughts and ideas, our dreams and our hopes. We live more and have our being in Science.  

The triumph of science is seen everywhere in life. According to Bertrand Russel, science has changed the face of the earth and the world has changed more during the last 150 years than during 4000 years prior to that. In fact, now , we have  ceased to look upon trains or motor cars, electricity or telegraph or radio as marvels of science. Can we visualize the shape of things before the birth of science? People living fifty miles away from London had hardly seen the world’s greatest so they remained the preserve of only a few. Communication was almost non – existent, except for those who could afford to send special messengers. Small- pox and other diseases reaped a harvest of people.  In short disease, ignorance and suspicion were prevalent everywhere.

Science has spanned the sky, measured the ocean and wrested from nature many of her hidden treasures. It has relieved human suffering by discovering secrets of health and disease. It has annihilated time and space and made communication and contact with world easier and quicker. It has extended the frontiers of our knowledge in various ways and various directions. It has enabled us to fight natural calamities and to revolutionize industrial and agricultural  process. Indeed when we think of triumphs of science, we gape in wonder and  admiration.

However, there is the other side of the picture. Science has done great disservice to mankind by putting into its lap the most dreadful discoveries of gunpowder, the hundreds and  thousands of deadly weapons including the deadliest of all, that is, the nuclear weaponry. Curiously enough, in the laboratories of different nations some of the best scientific brains of the world are vying with one another in production of news weapons of death and destruction. And so the question arises, is science bane or boon?

If science meant for man’s happiness is employed by man for his own death and destruction, who can help him? It is certainly not the fault of science, if we go on multiplying engines of destruction. Again if science has invented ingenious methods of death and destruction, it has not been slow to invent effective means of counter- acting them. It is reported that some effective weapons have been made to tame the fury of the nuclear bomb. It is not science, which is responsible for war, it is the beast in man. Alferd Noble had invented dynamite to help workers in mines and to construct roads in hilly places, but not to blow up their property. In holding science responsible for the havocs of modern war is injustice to it.    

It has been found that the energy generated by the release of an Atom bomb is sufficient to burn about four square kilometers of land, say about 80,000 people. But if the same energy is applied for constructive purposes, it is capable of working wonders. It has been found that one pound of uranium, when converted into energy is equivalent to 15,000 tonnes of coal. Therefore, the lovers of peace denounce the atomic weapons and not the atomic energy, which is presently. Being applied in the field of agriculture, medicine, industry and as a source of power on a limited scale.

Before us, now lies a new era in which the power of atomic energy has been released. That age will either be of complete devastation or in which new sources of power will lighten the labour of mankind and increase the standard of living all over the world. It is for us to decide, whether we will destroy the world with atomic bomb or rebuild it with atomic energy.   

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