Quote:
Originally Posted by bojan
I think this is unfair statement......
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...its more of a cynical statement bojan. Scientific research today (and for some time) tends to be conservative, boring and lacking in imagination and risk taking. Some areas of research are still vibrant and plowing along but generally the science that is conducted today just doesnt compare with the epochs that spewed out quantum mechanics or general relativity.
I suspect that the current Corpocracy has spread its tentacles to the sphere of science and engineering. In a sense science has been contaminated by corporations and their short term profit making ideology. Where are the dreamers today? What are we doing in the area of Space exploration apart from probes and some space telescopes? In the late 1960s when humans landed on the moon, the feeling in the general population as well as among scientists was that by the year 2000 a lunar base would have been set up and planetary landings planned soon after.
Just to give you an example. In the cancer research area, very little funding is directed towards cancers that dont effect huge numbers of people. Its a business model mentality. Can the Pharmaceutical companies get their money back and how fast?
Almost half the scientists and engineers in the US are directly or indirectly linked to the military industrial complex. In fact the top graduates are head hunted by the military industrial complex and stock market analysts.
Why sweat away in a University trying to carry out fundamental research or pushing the boundaries of knowledge and technology, when you can earn ten times the money working in the stock market developing day trading algorithms or designing cluster bombs for Raytheon?
Look at the Nobel Prizes handed out these days. They generally dont have have the depth and importance when compared to the first 60 years of Nobel prizes. How does one rate a Nobel prize for the invention of a blue LED about a decade ago with Dirac's or Shoredinger's Nobel Prize? Even the Nobel Peace prices have been trivialised and politicised.
Cynicism is generally counter productive, but I think science today deserves all it gets - generally boring riskless profit making ventures. Pathetic really - when science is one of the most magnificent tools of discover uncovered by humans. (and we can thanks Eratosthenes in about 190 BC for kicking off the scientific method in earnest)