Articles such as this so often seem to be based on the typically unexamined assumption that ever more science should obviously be our goal, and that anything that stands in the way of that goal is therefore automatically bad.
It would be great if sometimes we could back up and first inspect this "more is better" assumption before building a pile of conclusions on top of it. If we don't question like this then science starts feeling less like an act of reason and more like a "one true way" religion.
If we could push a button and make knowledge development go 1,000 times faster, is that automatically desirable? Is there any limit to how much we should learn, and how fast we should learn it? Does the science community consider the public to be a kind of god with unlimited management ability?
Scientists are experts at the data they study. But are they also experts on our relationship with science? Can we really expect anyone whose entire income comes from their hard won science career to be objective about how much science we should be doing?
Where are discussions like this happening in the science community, or if needed, elsewhere? Thanks for educating me on this!
Articles such as this so often seem to be based on the typically unexamined assumption that ever more science should obviously be our goal, and that anything that stands in the way of that goal is therefore automatically bad.
It would be great if sometimes we could back up and first inspect this "more is better" assumption before building a pile of conclusions on top of it. If we don't question like this then science starts feeling less like an act of reason and more like a "one true way" religion.
If we could push a button and make knowledge development go 1,000 times faster, is that automatically desirable? Is there any limit to how much we should learn, and how fast we should learn it? Does the science community consider the public to be a kind of god with unlimited management ability?
Scientists are experts at the data they study. But are they also experts on our relationship with science? Can we really expect anyone whose entire income comes from their hard won science career to be objective about how much science we should be doing?
Where are discussions like this happening in the science community, or if needed, elsewhere? Thanks for educating me on this!