Why does a society devote some of its resources to developing new knowledge about the natural world?

What has motivated the scientists to devote their lives to developing the new knowledge?
     One realm of answers lies in the desire to improve people's lives. Geneticists trying to understand how certain conditions are passed from generation to generation and biologists tracing the pathways by which diseases are transmitted are clearly seeking information that may better the lives of very ordinary people. Earth scientists developing better models for the prediction of weather or for the prediction of earthquakes, landslides, and volcanic eruptions are likewise seeking knowledge that can help avoid the hardships that have plagued humanity for centuries. Any society concerned about the welfare of its people, which is at the least any democratic society, will support efforts like these to better people's lives.
     Another realm of answers lies in a society's desires for economic development. Many earth scientists devote their work to finding more efficient or more effective ways to discover or recover natural resources like petroleum and ores. Plant scientists seeking strains or species of fruiting plants for crops are ultimately working to increase the agricultural output that nutritionally and literally enriches nations. Chemists developing new chemical substances with potential technological applications and physicists developing new phenomena like superconductivity are likewise developing knowledge that may spur economic development. In a world where nations increasingly view themselves as caught up in economic competition, support of such science is nothing less than an investment in the economic future.
     Another whole realm of answers lies in humanity's increasing control over our planet and its environment. Much science is done to understand how the toxins and wastes of our society pass through our water, soil, and air, potentially to our own detriment. Much science is also done to understand how changes that we cause in our atmosphere and oceans may change the climate in which we live and that controls our sources of food and water. In a sense, such science seeks to develop the owner's manual that human beings will need as they increasingly, if unwittingly, take control of the global ecosystem and a host of local ecosystems.
   

 Lastly, societies support science because of simple curiosity and because of the satisfaction and enlightenment that come from knowledge of the world around us.  Few of us will ever derive any economic benefit from knowing that the starlight we see in a clear night sky left those stars thousands and even millions of years ago, so that we observe such light as messengers of a very distant past.  However, the awe, perspective, and perhaps even serenity derived from that knowledge is very valuable to many of us.  Likewise, few of us will derive greater physical well-being from watching a flowing stream and from reflecting on the hydrologic cycle through which that stream's water has passed, from the distant ocean to the floating clouds of our skies to the rains and storms upstream and now to the river channel at which we stand.  However, the sense of interconnectedness that comes from such knowledge enriches our understanding of our world, and of our lives, in a very valuable way.  In recognizing that the light of the sun and the water of a well are not here solely because we profit from their presence, we additionally gain an analogy from which we can recognize that the people in the world around us are not here solely to conform to our wishes and needs.  When intangible benefits like these are combined with the more tangible ones outlined above, it's no wonder that most modern societies support scientific research for the improvement of our understanding of the world around us.
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Why do science?

Scientists become famous for discovering new things that change how we think about nature, whether the discovery is a new species of dinosaur or a new way in which atoms bond. Many scientists find their greatest joy in a previously unknown fact (a discovery) that explains something problem previously not explained, or that overturns some previously accepted idea.
     

That's the answer based on noble principles, and it probably explains why many people go into science as a career. On a pragmatic level, people also do science to earn their paychecks. Professors at most universities and many colleges are expected as part of their contractual obligations of employment to do research that makes new contributions to knowledge. If they don't, they lose their jobs, or at least they get lousy raises.
     Scientists also work for corporations and are paid to generate new knowledge about how a particular chemical affects the growth of soybeans or how petroleum forms deep in the earth. These scientists get paid better, but they may work in obscurity because the knowledge they generate is kept secret by their employers for the development of new products or technologies. In fact, these folks at Megacorp do science, in that they and people within their company learn new things, but it may be years before their work becomes science in the sense of a contribution to humanity's body of knowledge beyond Megacorp's walls.
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What is Science?

  Science is the concerted human effort to understand, or to understand better, the history of the natural world and how the natural world works, with observable physical evidence as the basis of that understanding. It is done through observation of natural phenomena, and/or through experimentation that tries to simulate natural processes under controlled conditions.
     Consider some examples. An ecologist observing the territorial behaviors of bluebirds and a geologist examining the distribution of fossils in an outcrop are both scientists making observations in order to find patterns in natural phenomena. They just do it outdoors and thus entertain the general public with their behavior. An astrophysicist photographing distant galaxies and a climatologist sifting data from weather balloons similarly are also scientists making observations, but in more discrete settings.
  

 The examples above are observational science, but there is also experimental science. A chemist observing the rates of one chemical reaction at a variety of temperatures and a nuclear physicist recording the results of bombardment of a particular kind of matter with neutrons are both scientists performing experiments to see what consistent patterns emerge. A biologist observing the reaction of a particular tissue to various stimulants is likewise experimenting to find patterns of behavior. These folks usually do their work in labs and wear impressive white lab coats, which seems to mean they make more money too.
     The critical commonality is that all these people are making and recording observations of nature, or of simulations of nature, in order to learn more about how nature, in the broadest sense, works.
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Ecological problems

1. Our planet is home to millions of different kinds of plant and animal species, which are linked in different ways. Together, they make up the complex world of nature. Unfortunately, co-habiting with humans brings up ecological problems. The most acute are pollution, acid rain, wildlife destruction, shortage of natural resources and global warming. These problems are interrelated as everything in the natural world depends on one another.

2. Wild plants and animals live in a particular set of surroundings, called their habitat. Nowadays people change habitats to suit their own. A lot of species - fish, reptiles, insects, birds, mammals - are disappearing fast. Many plants in the world are known to be in danger or threatened with extinction. A lot of forests are so badly damaged that they will hardly be able to recover. It’s reported that by 2030 25% of all animals, birds and insects may be extinct.

3. Acid rain falls when poisonous gases from power stations and vehicles (транспортные средства) mix with oxygen and moisture in the air. The problem could be controlled by reducing vehicle emissions and limiting the gases released from power stations.

4. World temperatures are currently rising every year. This phenomenon is called global warming. As the planet warms up, the water in the oceans will take up more space and water from glaciers (ледники ) and the polar ice caps will start to melt. This could cause sea levels to rise and many habitats will disappear under water. The cause of global warming is attributed to the greenhouse effect. It works in the following way - sunlight gives us heat which warms the atmosphere. Some of the heat returns into space. Nowadays the air surrounding the earth has become much warmer because the heat can't go back into space. 

That's why winter and summer temperatures in many places have become higher. These changes can be dangerous for our planet which needs protection. The measures to be taken include limitations for cutting rainforests and poisonous gas emissions as well as personal ecology of humans.

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