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Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? Governments and corporations should share all of their scientific discoveries with the rest of the world.

　　The majority of government and corporate research first enters the world in the form of commercial goods protected under intellectual property law. However, some believe that the results of their research should be freely shared for the good of humanity, rather than sold commercially. While I understand this well-intentioned sentiment, I have to disagree. I believe that such an idealistic system would actually be detrimental to scientific research overall.

　　First of all, research requires money. Equipment, staff, and facilities can quickly get expensive if you want to make any sort of reasonable progress. That is one reason why the majority of research conducted by governments and corporations (as opposed to say, non-profit organizations) is commercially driven. Take pharmaceutical research, for example: Every year, pharmaceutical companies pour billions of dollars a year into developing chemicals with medical applications. Of the countless chemicals they might investigate, only a select few turn out to be viable and make it to market. These companies have to sell their products at a price that allows them to recoup their massive research investment.

　　Secondly, the unfortunate reality is, the majority of people operate on greed principles. This is why capitalism works--it puts greedy people in competition with other greedy people, and as a byproduct the consumer benefits. This is not to say that all cases of research are self-serving, but if you take away the reward--that is, monetary incentive to do research--then progress in a lot of really valuable research would grind to a halt. That is why most countries have some form of intellectual property law: By protecting the creator's (or in this case, the researching organization's) right to commercially benefit from their work, governments incentivize the kind of research that society needs in order to progress. And usually, the fruits of such labor are eventually spread freely anyway: In the United States for example, work becomes public domain after a specified period of time.

　　Finally, as a matter of safety, certain types of research are better off not being freely distributed, at least at first. Nuclear energy research is an obvious example. Such research should be safeguarded by the countries that first develop it, in order to fully test its consequences before releasing it to the rest of the world. This is because other groups or countries may not have the expertise, resources, or ethical sensibility to apply it safely and responsibly. The same applies to any research into military technology. Can you imagine what would happen if you made such potentially destructive research available to people unable to comprehend its dangers? This would be akin to giving a child a knife.

　　I can understand why many wish that governments and corporations would release their research for free. However, for the reasons outlined above, such a system would just not be viable given the current realities we face. (Richard, 477 words)