“Knowledge is power. In agriculture, medicine and industry, for example, knowledge has liberated us from hunger, disease, and tedious labour. Today, however, our knowledge has become so powerful that it is beyond our control. We know how to do many things, but we do not know where, when, or even whether this know-how should be used.”
Assignment: Can knowledge be a burden rather than a benefit?
Knowledge is the burden that has housed mankind since our origin as hunter-gatherers. Curiosity is the bait in which mankind has sought knowledge. Knowledge cannot be a burden because of the numerous benefits it has provided through medicine, astronomy, and agriculture.
The field of medicine was created by our ancestors who used herbs and plants to cure the ill. Now medicinal technology rapidly progresses in the form of genetic engineering. Genetic engineering allows scientists to modify undesirable characteristics in livestock and plants. It has also allowed scientists to make bacteria create human proteins that are vital for people with diabetes. Without this knowledge of DNA, people like my friend Rose will have to rely on unsanitary insulin from pigs that are expensive and ineffective.
Not only has knowledge allowed for greater production of human proteins and plants, but it has also increased the scope of our knowledge with regard to astronomy. Many people since the time of Galileo have thought astronomy was a useless science. Modern scientists can now prove centuries of thinkers wrong. Knowledge of other planets allows scientists to search for a habitable planet that humans could live should earth become inhospitable.
Ignorance of knowledge will pose a greater burden. For example, global warming is a serious threat to the earth and only fourty five percent of people believe it is a threat despites evidence from eclectic sources. Scientists have proposed that if humans don’t stop the emission of green house gases and deforestation, the sixth mass extinction might be underway. In conclusion knowledge cannot be onerous, only ignorance.