The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon is apropos right now.
Gibbon wrote: “After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. (247 years is a decent run I guess) II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. (unfettered illegal immigration and secular “religions” aka transgenderism, transhumanism, et al.) III. The use and abuse of the materials. (excess consumerism, “throwaway” culture, etc.) And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.” (politicizing absolutely everything, the uniparty of our federal government).
John Horgan wrote an excellent book called "The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age" https://www.amazon.com/End-Science-Knowledge-Twilight-Scientific/dp/0201626799. He interviews different scientists to determine if the expansion of scientific knowledge will go on forever, or if we will reach a point at further progress is impossible (due to our inherent limits of perception or even funding problems as advanced research is increasingly costly).
Yes, "Publish or perish" has been a stupid, destructive paradigm. When I did a Master's degree years ago in education I was stunned that so many articles purporting to be about education did not mention students at all. And the quality of academic writing, with a few notable exceptions, was excruciating, jargon-filled, constipated bilge.
> Our engineering innovations are mainly soft and in code, but they are many, plain, and continuing.
There's a lot of engineering going on in biotech, materials science, chemistry, energy, rocketry, construction, electronics, hardware, and pretty much every other engineering domain. Also, there's plenty of advanced science going on hand-in-hand with this engineering, without which there wouldn't be this engineering, as has been the case since the 19th-to-20th turn of the century when the second industrial revolution happened, starting with Germany, specifically by grounding product and production development in science (what is today called R&D).
The popular "science press" and the engagement-based "I love STEM (as long as I don't have to learn any)" social media don't represent this, but then again, the popular representation of science and engineering has been iffy since at least the aforementioned second industrial revolution.
Yes, "publish or perish" has been a terrible idea for many reasons, as have been anonymous pre-publication veto (incorrectly called "peer review") and pseudo-accurate metrics like citation counts or impact factors (considering both how easy they are to game and how heterogeneous different STEM fields are). But this is not a _science_ problem, this is an _organizations_ problem.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon is apropos right now.
Gibbon wrote: “After a diligent inquiry, I can discern four principal causes of the ruin of Rome, which continued to operate in a period of more than a thousand years. I. The injuries of time and nature. (247 years is a decent run I guess) II. The hostile attacks of the Barbarians and Christians. (unfettered illegal immigration and secular “religions” aka transgenderism, transhumanism, et al.) III. The use and abuse of the materials. (excess consumerism, “throwaway” culture, etc.) And, IV. The domestic quarrels of the Romans.” (politicizing absolutely everything, the uniparty of our federal government).
Soylent Green is People!!!
I quite enjoyed this article. May I request that Quigley’s “The Evolution of Civilizations” also be given consideration?
John Horgan wrote an excellent book called "The End Of Science: Facing The Limits Of Knowledge In The Twilight Of The Scientific Age" https://www.amazon.com/End-Science-Knowledge-Twilight-Scientific/dp/0201626799. He interviews different scientists to determine if the expansion of scientific knowledge will go on forever, or if we will reach a point at further progress is impossible (due to our inherent limits of perception or even funding problems as advanced research is increasingly costly).
Yes, "Publish or perish" has been a stupid, destructive paradigm. When I did a Master's degree years ago in education I was stunned that so many articles purporting to be about education did not mention students at all. And the quality of academic writing, with a few notable exceptions, was excruciating, jargon-filled, constipated bilge.
A man cannot become a woman in the same way as I cannot go live in my neighbors back yard and declare myself a tree.
> Our engineering innovations are mainly soft and in code, but they are many, plain, and continuing.
There's a lot of engineering going on in biotech, materials science, chemistry, energy, rocketry, construction, electronics, hardware, and pretty much every other engineering domain. Also, there's plenty of advanced science going on hand-in-hand with this engineering, without which there wouldn't be this engineering, as has been the case since the 19th-to-20th turn of the century when the second industrial revolution happened, starting with Germany, specifically by grounding product and production development in science (what is today called R&D).
The popular "science press" and the engagement-based "I love STEM (as long as I don't have to learn any)" social media don't represent this, but then again, the popular representation of science and engineering has been iffy since at least the aforementioned second industrial revolution.
Yes, "publish or perish" has been a terrible idea for many reasons, as have been anonymous pre-publication veto (incorrectly called "peer review") and pseudo-accurate metrics like citation counts or impact factors (considering both how easy they are to game and how heterogeneous different STEM fields are). But this is not a _science_ problem, this is an _organizations_ problem.
query: some quick searching indicates this James Blish's writing predates the Star Trek books I associate with that author's name. is that correct?