“How do scientists proceed when aware only that something has gone fundamentally wrong at a level with which their training has not equipped them to deal?”
Fascinating. I wonder if the social practice of science, which is anything but scientific, would follow Kuhn's model for scientific breakthrough. Perhaps it might follow another model, maybe an anthropological model, or an institutional change model, or a Clementsian Succession model (why not?). The Kuhn introduction offers the opportunity to ask of today's scientific infrastructure, can the center hold? And if not, what can be established in its place?
Suppose the center cannot hold:
- How much time does it have left?
- Aren't the Cold War conditions that gave rise to the current model still relevant? The US is arguably embroiled in a number of Cold and Hot Wars, and its model of governance is today more threatened than anytime in the last century. (Francis Fukuyama, we hardly knew you.) How does this change the scientific agenda intrinsically and extrinsically? I point you to the NSCEB report.
- What are reasonable replacement economic models to support research when discovery today can require a Webb telescope or a CERN particle collider level of investment?
One fear I have is that said new model for science will wholly depend on AI. How easy it would be to shift the scientific agenda to feeding the AI mother brain. How easy to treat it as a digital oracle to answer both questions of social good and scientific discovery. How easy to take credit for the victories and blame the machine for failures.
Rather than throw away the proverbial baby, perhaps one way to reframe the question is, What still works and what needs changing in today's science? And who and which agendas is it and is it serving?
Thanks again for your brilliant and creative insights Christina.
Hi Dan! So many interesting threads here. I think your anthropological question is really the heart of the matter; kuhn’s history is very human, showing how we make sense of the world and how our collective understanding is made, reinforced, and remade. But a central belief of science has been to reject that humanness. This is the center that cannot hold.
Your AI point is perhaps a symptom of this belief? We have defined science so strongly in opposition to our humanness, as a realm of pure rationality and raw intelligence. It’s no wonder that so many now yearn to remove humans completely from the practice of science. But as you say, what and whose agenda is it serving?
Others choose to lean into those political agendas explicitly (maybe you’ve seen some of the remaining synbio chemicals stories fully rebranding as serving US defense interests, as one example!), continually trying to revive the Cold War urgency of a technological race.
So maybe the question is less what works, but what and who does it work for? And perhaps more interestingly, how could it be otherwise?
Fascinating. I wonder if the social practice of science, which is anything but scientific, would follow Kuhn's model for scientific breakthrough. Perhaps it might follow another model, maybe an anthropological model, or an institutional change model, or a Clementsian Succession model (why not?). The Kuhn introduction offers the opportunity to ask of today's scientific infrastructure, can the center hold? And if not, what can be established in its place?
Suppose the center cannot hold:
- How much time does it have left?
- Aren't the Cold War conditions that gave rise to the current model still relevant? The US is arguably embroiled in a number of Cold and Hot Wars, and its model of governance is today more threatened than anytime in the last century. (Francis Fukuyama, we hardly knew you.) How does this change the scientific agenda intrinsically and extrinsically? I point you to the NSCEB report.
- What are reasonable replacement economic models to support research when discovery today can require a Webb telescope or a CERN particle collider level of investment?
One fear I have is that said new model for science will wholly depend on AI. How easy it would be to shift the scientific agenda to feeding the AI mother brain. How easy to treat it as a digital oracle to answer both questions of social good and scientific discovery. How easy to take credit for the victories and blame the machine for failures.
Rather than throw away the proverbial baby, perhaps one way to reframe the question is, What still works and what needs changing in today's science? And who and which agendas is it and is it serving?
Thanks again for your brilliant and creative insights Christina.
Hi Dan! So many interesting threads here. I think your anthropological question is really the heart of the matter; kuhn’s history is very human, showing how we make sense of the world and how our collective understanding is made, reinforced, and remade. But a central belief of science has been to reject that humanness. This is the center that cannot hold.
Your AI point is perhaps a symptom of this belief? We have defined science so strongly in opposition to our humanness, as a realm of pure rationality and raw intelligence. It’s no wonder that so many now yearn to remove humans completely from the practice of science. But as you say, what and whose agenda is it serving?
Others choose to lean into those political agendas explicitly (maybe you’ve seen some of the remaining synbio chemicals stories fully rebranding as serving US defense interests, as one example!), continually trying to revive the Cold War urgency of a technological race.
So maybe the question is less what works, but what and who does it work for? And perhaps more interestingly, how could it be otherwise?