Almost all the great revolutions in scientific thinking may be behind us, but the way modern science is conducted stifles radical new ideas.
Wired magazine is well known for its catchy cover lines. I won’t forget one from 2007. Alongside a mocked-up image of a yellowing lab notebook and magnifying lens, it proclaimed: “The end of science: The quest for science used to begin with grand theories; now it begins with massive amounts of data.”
Scientists and science commentators often say that if yesterday’s science needed outstanding individuals such as Darwin and Einstein, tomorrow’s theories will be shaped by the vast quantities of data pouring forth from networked computers and from the labours of big research teams working in areas such as particle physics, the human genome and astronomy.
The End of Science was also the title of a book published in 1996 by science writer John Horgan, though Horgan thought the pursuit of science was coming to an end for different reasons. He claimed that the basic scaffolding of the natural world is now mostly understood – the big bang theory, the structure of DNA and evolution by natural selection and the periodic table of elements are not going to change. Yes, many refinements are needed in our understanding of how things work, but as we are closer to reality in so many fields, the chances of seeing revolutionary new thinking will be that much less.
I would disagree.
We still need to research why the problems in the world exist today. Emotional intellegence and how it really works is probably a good step to take.
bollocks
Our awareness of the wisdom of crowds has advanced scientific research because we now use large teams of scientists to tackle problems.
Scientific revolution comes with depth of understanding and also breadth of understanding. Imagine if mainstream society eventually adopts scientific thinking into their everyday life. Derren, Dawkins and others alike work to make the connection of science to mainstream. We should congratulate these people and aspire to contribute to this promotion of science. If we are aware of it and can enrich our lives because of it, then we have a responsibility to those who are unaware.
Once the message gets through to the whole world (don’t hold your breath, but I will happen – we’ll evolve to it) then we’ll have a world where the entire crowd is individually wise. Only then will something greater come. Only then will the unimagineable revolution occur.
Science hasn’t even begun.
As a physicist (well, ex-astrophysicist, actually), let me say this: This is EXACTLY what the physicists of the 1880s said!
Back in the day, we had Newton’s mechanics and theory of Gravity to explain how everything moved and Maxwell’s Electromagnetic theory, unifying the forces of electricity and magnetism and explaining not only these forces but also the nature of light (and other electromagnetic radiation). Physics had come as far as it could and we knew everything there was to know about how the ‘universe’ worked. Future physics, they thought, was just a matter of improving accuracy.
Then came Einstein, first changing the basic notion of space and time and how movement shows the two to be part of the same ‘spacetime’. Then he showed how the force of gravity is actually the bending of this spacetime. Then came the Quantum theory, completely changing the way we viewed the subatomic world. Then Edwin Hubble provided evidence that our Galaxy wasn’t all there was and that it was just a speck in a much bigger picture, leading eventually to Big Bang theory. After that came the varied world of particle physics, and incredible theories such as Feynmann’s Quantum Electrodynamics (QED). Of course, nowadays serious physicists talks about Many Worlds, alternative realities, String theory, multiple dimensions, what happened before the Big Bang, M-theory and our place in the Multiverse, etc. Who’s to tell what is another 100 years up the road?
I think the key thing to remember is this: Being scientific is more than just applying scientific method or current scientific knowledge. Being scientific is also about being open-minded as to what we don’t currently see or know. That was the great contribution of the “outstanding individuals” mentioned in the article (Darwin, Einstein, etc.), whereas those scienticists who are blinkered by what they know now write articles about how science has gone as far as it can, just as they did in the 1880s.
Come on. We can do better than that!
We only know that we do not know… as the old greek guy used to say. With all the anachronisms being discovered in Quantum physics, the fact that string theory has pretty much concluded that there must be 11 dimensions (only 4 of which we actually can sense) without warp drives, time travel, or a really good final blow against creationism, Science has a long, long way to go before it sleeps.
I think I get where this article is coming from, but can’t agree completely.
Freud was full of grand theories – and has now been almost entirely discredited due to a lack of empirical support. However if he had been able to utilise modern methodologies to quantify his ideas, they could have been honed using feedback from any data collected and may still have some credence. Pioneers Eysenck, Pavlov (nobel prize winner), Galton and Skinner were all ‘thinkers’ too, however they maintained an effective methodolgy to support what they believed.
We will always use our imagination to gear scientific discovery – the methodologies ensure we stay in the realms of reality and truth but the inspiration of what to look for and where will always be instrinsic and idiosyncratic. Scientists are people too!
Internal ideas first – external methodology second.
Reminds me of my favourite comment about science from Dara O’Briain – talking about people who always say that science doesn’t know everything:
“Of course science doesn’t know everything. It *knows* it doesn’t know everything. If it did, it’d stop!”
Brilliant.
Who will fund them? Mostly they want some relevance to society.
But above all .. human brain, and thinking, will stay important.
We might not recognize revolutionary new ideas … steps are way smaller .. faster .. more publications .. more people in the field … huge cooperation now, buildng on the past, but not always.
Afterwards we quite often see how revolutionary some ideas or ways of thinking have been ..
Scientists discover still new stuff on a daily bases. What they exactly discovered is not always clear rightaway …
I have so many revolutionary ideas .. but hey .. I dont need to be credited for them .. I’ll just wait till scientists go work on them (and they do, quite often). Aint that nice.
Great book on this topic: “The Trouble with Physics” by Lee Smolin. Takes an in-depth look at the change in scientific approache in the late twentieth century and gives a critical analysis of the result this has had with progress in science.