Scientific research has been the
driver of progress and is the guarantee of the future of
humanity, President Sergio Mattarella said on Monday.
"Research has been the main driver of humanity's progress," said
Mattarella at the Quirinale palace on the occasion of the annual
'Days of research' organised by the Italian foundation for
cancer research AIRC.
"AIRC's double foundational intuition has had a prophetic value.
First of all: cancer can be defeated. Secondly: to win this
challenge, we must focus on medical and scientific research. A
dual perspective that has progressively created awareness,
participation, culture," he continued.
"Research is the guarantee of the future. Research is the cure,"
insisted Mattarella, adding that "yesterday's research has
already become today's cure, today's research will be tomorrow's
cure".
"Yet after so much evidence, after it was demonstrated in the
dramatic experience of the pandemic that the human costs would
have been far greater without the rapid discovery of vaccines,
unreasonable and anti-scientific theories continue to
circulate," said the president.
Mattarella insisted that anti-scientific theories "not only
cloud the vision of the common good but often threaten the very
health of citizens, contravening the prescription of Article 32
of the Constitution, according to which health is both a
fundamental right of the individual and an interest of the
community".
"In the age of artificial intelligence and the greatest
acceleration of science, the dissemination of knowledge
continues to mingle with its opposite. It is a paradox of our
modernity," he said.
Mattarella also lamented the limited available resources for
scientific research "compared to the standards we should be
reaching" and the fact that "many young people go abroad and
stay there not because they would not like to work in Italy, but
because here certain conditions - economic and professional -
are not very open, less competitive".
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