Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under
the tension, slip, slide, perish, Decay with imprecision, will
not stay in place, Will not stay still. T.S. Elliot, Burnt Norton
In some of the most advanced fields of scientific inquiry,
research results are exchanged as soon as they become available.
Obviously, the sluggish medium of print and the long cycles
involved in the review process prior to academic publication do
not come into the picture. On Web sites dedicated to research,
the review process consists of acknowledging, challenging, and
furthering breakthrough hypotheses. It is carried out by real
peers, not by the geriatric or opportunistic hierarchies that
have the publishing process in their firm grip. Frequently,
research is carried out in and through the communication media.
Images, data, and simulations are part of the work and part of
the shared knowledge, already available in formats that can be
inputted for further work or can be technologically tested.
Of course, there are many issues connected to the new dynamics of
science, not the least of which is intellectual property and
integrity. A totally new experience in research and knowledge
dissemination is taking place. The majority of the researchers
involved know that previous models, originating in the pragmatics
of the civilization of literacy, will not provide answers. As
beautiful as the science embodied in the technology of
industrial society is, it will not, not even accidentally,
contribute to the scientific progress in nanotechnology, in
bioinformatics, in fluid dynamics, and in other frontier domains
researched today. Gene expression and protein syntheses are many
working centuries-the total of the years contributed by
researchers to the advancement of their respective fields-ahead
of everything that science has produced in the past. Add to
these accomplishments in the ever-expanding list of modern
sciences, and you get the feeling that humankind is literally
reinventing itself in the civilization of illiteracy.
The list to follow is telling of the shift from the coarse level
of scientific effort corresponding to the industrial operations
of milling and grinding, to a level of atomic and sub-atomic
re-ordering. The same components, differently ordered, can appear
to us as graphite or diamonds, sand or silicon for chips. The
list represents a reality of enormous consequence, confirmed in
the daily commotion of a never-ending series of discoveries.
Life on Mars, molecular self-assembly, protein folding, atomic
resolution imaging, nano-structural materials with unprecedented
properties, quantum devices, advances in neuro-medicine-the list
is a shameless exercise in creating headlines, soon to be
replaced by newer and more creative endeavors. This is why, in
addressing issues of science and philosophy, I do not intend to
offer a catalogue of current research, but to put the subject in
a dynamic perspective. By all means, I want to avoid the danger
of presenting science especially as the agent of change, as
though its own motivations and means could give humankind its
direction and purpose.