Research work should be controlled by the Government (the British Waste Line)

Research work should be controlled by the Government (the British Waste Line)

 

Research nowadays is so respectable a word that few have the courage to ask whether all expenditure under this heading is justified. On the one hand, the whole thing is wrapped in mystery. On the other, it is commonly assumed that research will pay an eventual dividend or at least that a failure to do research will have appalling consequences in terms of international influence and prestige. It is worth noticing, that hardly conceivable sums are involved and many people believe that waste is inseparable from research. Therefore an opinion prevails that research work should be controlled by the government. As it is stated in the article we’ve read “The British Waste Line”, the waste is inevitable, because negative results are necessarily frequent. The layman ’s suspicion is that money is lavished on dreamy-eyed eccentric professors who wander off vaguely and then reappear initiated and financed. However this is a common fallacy. Waste is the result of control being excessive, not of its being absent. Scientific research is about inspiration, no king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they didn’t know and could not have known that there was any such law to discover. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date, for no politician of his day and scarcely any other scientist would have known what such an achievement would imply or what purpose it would serve. The reality is that discoveries are not made like that.

 

Is it true that we can combat stress with the means of laughter?

It goes without saying that our modern life is full of pressure and frustration. So, stress is an inevitable consequence of our life. Stress does not only make us feel anxious and nervous, but can also contribute to serious health problems. Researchers say that chronic stress as well as temporary stress can trigger a variety of diseases, including diabetes, headaches, heart disease, high blood pressure and insurmountable immune disorders. Since stress has become unavoidable in today’s world, we need to know how to handle it. Learning how to manage stress is an indispensable skill for everyone. There are several manoeuvres that are worth mentioning.

To start with, humour is one of the best on-the-spot stress busters. It helps to release tension and to avoid those creepy effects of stress that our body is prone to nowadays. It’s impossible to belly laugh and feel bad at the same time. The physiological effects of a good laugh work against stress. After a slight rise in heart rate and blood pressure during the laugh itself, there’s an immediate recoil: muscles relax and blood pressure sinks below prelaugh levels, and the brain may release endorphins, the same stress reducers that are triggered by exercise. If you want to avoid bad consequences of stress then you should learn to laugh it away. There are some gentle forms of humour that can defuse anxiety in a group without making anyone feel like the butt of a joke. First of all, you should pick a safe subject, and for instance, making fun of your own foibles can save face in an embarrassing situation- as you will have people laughing with you rather than at you. Inanimate objects are also considered to be safe subjects of humor. Then you can keep a file of jokes and cartoons that make you laugh. Or sometimes just telling the truth or pointing out the obvious can make people laugh. So, if you manage to keep all this in mind when facing stress, you will be able to combat it and show your smiling face to other people. No doubt, it is an efficient method.

 

Research work should be controlled by the Government (the British Waste Line)

 

Research nowadays is so respectable a word that few have the courage to ask whether all expenditure under this heading is justified. On the one hand, the whole thing is wrapped in mystery. On the other, it is commonly assumed that research will pay an eventual dividend or at least that a failure to do research will have appalling consequences in terms of international influence and prestige. It is worth noticing, that hardly conceivable sums are involved and many people believe that waste is inseparable from research. Therefore an opinion prevails that research work should be controlled by the government. As it is stated in the article we’ve read “The British Waste Line”, the waste is inevitable, because negative results are necessarily frequent. The layman ’s suspicion is that money is lavished on dreamy-eyed eccentric professors who wander off vaguely and then reappear initiated and financed. However this is a common fallacy. Waste is the result of control being excessive, not of its being absent. Scientific research is about inspiration, no king or minister could have instructed Newton to discover the law of gravity, for they didn’t know and could not have known that there was any such law to discover. Nor was Rutherford instructed to split the atom by a certain date, for no politician of his day and scarcely any other scientist would have known what such an achievement would imply or what purpose it would serve. The reality is that discoveries are not made like that.