The most important aim of science ought to be to improve people’s lives. To what extent do you agree or disagree?

Having made a plethora of discoveries and inventions in the 20th century, from cars to the Internet, a lot of people nowadays firmly believe, that science entails a distinct and measurable result, intended to improve our lives.

While

it is true, that the intentions behind the discoveries must be pure, not only can the initial idea be drastically distorted towards the end, but the core idea of a study can

also

have a slightly different effect in general. First of all, historically, not all discoveries made a positive impact on humanity, and it is very debatable, whether they had improved our existence or introduced more chaos into it. As an example, the creation of an atomic bomb by J. Robert Oppenheimer led to one of the biggest humanitarian catastrophes in the entire world, that being the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

As a result

, both cities were completely obliterated, thousands of civilians died immediately and most were killed over time by radiation.

Secondly

, the term "improvement" itself should be seriously questioned, whether we are talking about materialistic, spiritual or philosophical implications.

For instance

, physics, chemistry and math produce clear and specific results,

while

other subjects like history, sociology or philosophy tend to have an indirect approach to affecting our lives by analyzing our past, constructing our behavioural patterns or contemplating our existence.

Consequently

, it is absolutely ignorant to diminish the effect, that soft sciences have on our society, just because they don't produce a distinct outcome. In conclusion, I firmly disagree with the statement, that science should enhance people's lives. Soft sciences tend to explain our surroundings, and at the same time, the results of hard sciences can be quite controversial.