A COUNTRY WITH SCIENCE OR JUST
A COUNTRY WITH SCIENTISTS?
By advancing the frontiers of human knowledge, science provides the people who actually participate in its development with a better quality of life. This is achieved through the liberation of man in relation to basic survival needs and the consequent sophistication of human activity in its social, economic, cultural and artistic aspects. Ultimately, doing science is living to the fullest man's adventure on earth. People who do not participate in scientific development are, to a large extent, excluded from advances in quality of life standards and are economically subordinate in relation to the people who lead advances in knowledge. Reversing this situation is not an easy task, since creating a scientific culture requires large investments in education and culture, which is made difficult by the deficiencies arising from the difficulty that these societies have in creating wealth without the main input for this, which is knowledge. Finding ways to break this vicious circle is the great challenge for societies in developing countries like ours.
In a very rough but illustrative approximation, we could say that the world is today divided into two parts. On the one hand, there is the technologically advanced world, whose main characteristic is the high standard of mastery of science and technological innovation; on the other hand, the third world, which does not have mastery of science and technology. In other words, a first world that thinks scientifically, creates, invents, produces, discovers, lends or withholds its technology, and a third world that travels, communicates, has fun, treats health and dies, using clothes, vehicles , telephones, Internet, television, sports, medicines and weapons that invents the first.
Through the media, the third world only perceives science in its most external aspects: newspaper headlines, celebrations, awards, receptions, speeches by authorities and scientific congresses that bring together the fine flower of intelligence. In this context, science appears as the miraculous tool to lift the country out of backwardness, poverty and hopelessness. Politicians and decision makers in general share this vision and conclude that it would be enough to finance a few hundred or thousands of researchers to “get on the bandwagon” of progress, abundance and happiness. How many times have we heard, with each important discovery in the first world, the famous phrase: “Brazil cannot lose the tram of... (whatever it is)”. Unfortunately, the tram is never reached, or almost never.
This naive view, which considers science to be the heritage of a select group of citizens, from whom miracles and an end to misery must be expected, hides a fundamental error in perspective. A country does not do science just by investing varying amounts of money in scientists and laboratories. These investments are necessary, but they are not sufficient. If successful, they generate good researchers, an indispensable component for expanding the frontiers of knowledge. However, the experience of recent centuries shows that, for a country to have science, its society must have a vision of the world guided by the certainty that science, as well as the product of science, is the true generator of well-being and progress.
We do not intend to state here that this vision must necessarily be the vision of each citizen, but it must certainly be the vision of those who decide the direction of national events: political, business and union leaders; armed forces, public or private organizations of producers and consumers and, above all, those who, at all levels, plan and implement the educational system.
The other view of science, the one that makes science a part of political marketing, is just “science for the English to see”. This intriguing expression, which originates from the era of slavery, is very convenient for describing part of the research carried out in our country. In it, the simple acquisition of sophisticated scientific equipment is considered a scientific achievement in itself. Such equipment is sometimes displayed to visitors as if they were significant search results, and not just work tools. Behind this vision is the belief that science is done by sophisticated devices and not by men, and that it is enough to equip a laboratory in a modern way for research results to begin to emerge. Experience shows, however, that the fundamental component of scientific development is always human resources.
To achieve a country with science, universal, mandatory and quality education is a fundamental element for the population to believe that the well-being of society depends on the constant search for the appropriation of knowledge. A population integrated into the modern information society requires a critical mass of researchers recruited from a broad population with access to higher education and a productive system committed to progress. Therefore, the existence of science in a country depends more on the vision of the world that its society has than on the fraction of GDP used to purchase telescopes, spectrometers, computers and other equipment necessary for research. This vision would, for example, cause business chambers and unions to come to the immediate defense of schools, colleges and universities, every time the central power suffocates them economically or in some other way. They would also make their voices heard to stop educators and teachers from building systems of corporate privilege.
Having a society with a scientific culture capable of generating original knowledge is not the same as having a few great scientists. With significant resources applied on a continuous basis and a training program for researchers abroad, a country can generate, in a short time, highly qualified research groups with some international level researchers capable of obtaining important academic awards. However, such groups will be entirely disconnected from the country's social reality and will have little chance of fertilizing, with their discoveries, the industrial and services system and generating employment and income. Today, in the world, we have several countries in these conditions, countries whose scientists have even received Nobel Prizes, but whose population continues to live mostly in poverty and ignorance.
The great challenge for our society is to promote economic growth and reduce social inequality, and there is no doubt that increasing the general level of education of the population is an essential part of this process. More quality schooling and the consequent integration of a greater portion of our population into the country's efforts in science and technology is a basic condition for the participation of all Brazilians in a modern economy, in a truly democratic society.
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