adm@cbneb.UUCP (09/13/84)
A question for futurists and philosophers of science: What do present trends suggest about Science of the future? I don't mean the technology. I mean the culture, focus, status, and underlying assumptions of what science means. In addition, what are the historical reasons for expecting changes? What happens in civilizations when natural resources run out, when the weather is good or bad for long periods of time, or when the political climate changes dramatically?
cunningh@noscvax.UUCP (Robert P. Cunningham) (09/24/84)
As an interested observer of various multi-disciplinary scientific projects, I'd venture to say that science, in the near future, will be highly dependent upon: 1) the paradigms being developed today. 2) the available sources of funding. More explicitly, the concepts and theories - along with the approaches and tools (both mental and physical) - that are in the process of being formulated now will strongly affect the directions that scientific efforts will take in the near future. In order to warrant the time of scientific researchers, a branch of research must both present "interesting" problems (not only intriguing ones, but questions that, when resolved, result in a gain of knowledge). Of course, new and interesting questions are being uncovered all the time... Still "Delphi" techniques, relying on the insights of key workers in various fields of research can, sometimes, forecast research directions for possibly several decades ahead. And, while there are exceptions, most scientific research takes a considerable amount of time, effort and equipment. And, thus money. The major portion of scientific research in the U.S. is funded by the federal government. Governmental policy decisions very much affect the directions of research. A substantial portion is funded by corportions (including internal, contract and granted research). Corporate policy affects those directions. Smaller portions are funded by foundations, state governents, internally at universities, and through private and individual monies or efforts. Predicting policy changes that affect scientific research over the long term is probably nearly impossible. A final factor might well be training. It takes time to develop a cohort of individual scientists trained in any particular discipline, and scientists trained in a particular discipline (say high-energy physics) do tend to apply the techniques of that discipline to their investigations...even when they migrate to other fields. Looking at the numbers of advanced degrees being granted now in various fields would probably give some insight into the kinds of scientific work those people will be doing over the next several decades.