Twilight of the scientific age
Science is in decline. After centuries of great achievements, fatigue has developed in our culture and many others. Our society is saturated with knowledge, with very little improvement in real happiness levels. And ideals have got lost in the search.
In 1996 Scientific American columnist John Horgan published a book, ‘The End of Science’. The thesis: The pursuit of science was ending because the basic theories of the natural world are now mostly understood. The big bang theory, the structure of DNA, evolution by natural selection and the periodic table of elements are not going to change. We are close to reality in so many fields that the chances of seeing revolutionary new thinking has become much less.
John Horgan interviewed an impressive array of scientists and philosophers who were sharply divided over the prospects and possibilities of science. The pessimists suggest that as science reaches the limits of knowledge, it is reaching a point of diminishing returns; they object to pretensions of certainty and the potential to stamp out the diversity of human thought. The discussion left much room for optimism.
In every scientific arena there is always the search for more and better. What new principles, laws, processes or qualities need to be discovered? What new theory will supersede and subsume general relativity? Which new complex feature of DNA structure will produce something really new? Spectacular new theories are rare events; progress will be minimal.
Perhaps the problem is because of the way in which modern science is organised. It takes a lot of courage to challenge accepted views and needs a lot of stamina to battle the status quo. Mavericks do not do well in large organisations, which is what most science has become. So, are we in the twilight of science?
But technological progress will not stop. Technology developments are funded because the search for smaller, better, cheaper will continue – forever!
Progress trap
A progress trap is the condition human societies experience when the progress they achieve introduces unforeseen problems: conditions change, ideas are carried to excess and turn sour, sometimes even dangerous. There are no resources to solve the problems, which prevents further progress and sometimes leads to collapse.
Many people now feel that humans are inventing and developing their way to disaster. ‘Surviving Progress’ is a new film with a grim view about where human civilisation is headed. It includes interviews with several experts who agree that humanity is in trouble. We are now reaching a point at which technological progress threatens our very existence.
This film features the opinions of people we all respect: Chimpanzee researcher Jane Goodall, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, and someone I have met and particularly admire, J. Craig Venter, the scientist and researcher who made history by sequencing the human genome and producing a living cell with a computer-generated genome.
This 80-minute film, which I found on Netflix, melds together the environmental crises, the 2008 financial crash, poverty in developing countries, and the decline and fall of ancient Rome and Babylonia. The ancient empires examples are appropriate because they collapsed due to problems that afflict societies today: over-concentration of wealth at the top, and reckless and wasteful consumption of natural resources. These things remain unchecked and are worsening.
Perhaps time and human nature will even the odds. People who are rich tend to become unmotivated and lazy, which is a natural levelling mechanism over a couple of generations. This applies to any culture anywhere in the world, and the process is even faster today.
Time and human nature have other ways to change the game too. The populations in rich countries tend to decline at faster rates through education and birth-control while poorer countries multiply faster.
Today, Japan, Russia and much of Europe have fast-declining populations, leaving a growing ratio of elders (with big entitlements) to be supported by the shrinking younger generation. In America, immigration keeps the population on an upward trend, with demographics shifting fairly quickly to the less-wealthy, hence faster-growing minority segments.
So, how will our present societies survive progress?
Jim Pinto is an industry analyst and commentator, writer, technology futurist and angel investor. His popular e-mail newsletter, JimPinto.com eNews, is widely read (with direct circulation of about 7000 and web-readership of two to three times that number). His areas of interest are technology futures, marketing and business strategies for a fast-changing environment, and industrial automation with a slant towards technology trends.
© Technews Publishing (Pty) Ltd | All Rights Reserved
printer friendly version