Contemplate the next major revolution in science

[Michaelangelica]

What if the next major revolution in science has already happened and no one has noticed?

What if HydrogenBond has the answer?

 

After all the Ancient Greeks knew the world was round and its circumference long before Copernicus and Galileo.:eek_big:

Many discoveries (like Mendel, penicillin,DNA, immunisation for example) have laid dormant for years, if not generations, before they were "re-discovered"

 

What if the Next revolution has already happened and we are too dumb to notice?:doh:

or

if we do notice (eg Terra preta or Global warming/cooling) it takes too long for the idea to be implemented or accepted?:doh:

[koantum]

What if the next major revolution in science has already happened and no one has noticed?

I agree with one minor (?) modification. It's not a revolution in science. It's a revolution that takes us beyond science, just as the scientific revolution took us from mythical explanations to scientific ones. Now the scientific ones have passed their expiry date.

:eek_big:

[IDMclean]

I believe that the next stage is in Information. Human and otherwise. Shortly after that I believe it will be the actualization of the Human species. Where we no longer are bound by what we are, and can become free to become what we dream.

 

It is logical step that man dreamed of flying and then we flew. We dream of visisting the stars, and so it shall come to pass. I dream of mastery over my form, and over my cycle, so it shall to come to pass. I hope to see the days where one can bring themselves to define their own limits, where man designs himself and decides his destiny ultimately.

[Michaelangelica]

I hope to see the days where one can bring themselves to define their own limits, where man designs himself and decides his destiny ultimately.

 

Scary stuff

Do you think we have grown up enough yet?

[IDMclean]

We're getting there I think.

 

It is my intuition that tells me that we are near one of the major advances of mankind. We just have to get past a few things that hold us back.

[Michaelangelica]

We're getting there I think.

 

It is my intuition that tells me that we are near one of the major advances of mankind. We just have to get past a few things that hold us back.

 

Yes, simple things like the way we think.(!)

 

The way we educate by promoting increasingly narrow specialisation does not help either.

I think a more eclectic, catholic education might better lead to breakthroughs between, and across disciplines/ sciences/specialities.

[IDMclean]

Robert A Heinlein.

"Specialization is for insects."

 

Ghost in the Shell

"Over specialize and breed in weakness"

 

Religion is something that I personally feel is a personal quest, one should be provided with relativent material, but it should not be interpeted or filtered by any one person, it should be discussed and questions should be asked, simply for the asking. Regarding such a wide open question "who/what is god?" and "what is the meaning of life?", I do not think there should be concrete answers for such questions, or at least not from without.

[koantum]

"Who are we? The answer to this question is not only one of the tasks but the task of science."

Erwin Schroedinger, Science and Humanism, 1953

Maybe the next major revolution happens when we find the answer...

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Carl Sagan

[Sharmistha]

My first question is what is scientific revolution? If it is to discover after lots of hardworking and which might serve the society a lot in coming future, than I feel that Artificial intelligence with the help of Fuzzy set theory ,if completed succesfully might help us a lot and may be termed as a "Scientific revolution".

[CraigD]

Ok but I feel we are a bit off-topic. Should the moderaters start a new Form "Darwin re-visited"?

I think Michaelangelica is right – the worthy “next major revolution in science” thread appears to have been egregiously thread-jacked. :hihi:

 

If there are no objections by 12:00 EST 22/6/06, I’ll move the “Darwin re-visited” posts into their own thread.

[Kayra]

No objection here.

 

Odd thing that, I knew I was off topic, but could not help myself.

It was like watching someone else type.

[CraigD]

As promised some days ago, the line of inquiry concerning Darwin’s “survival of the fittest” originally started in this thread has been moved to a new thread, 7372. Though interesting and popular, it was felt that this new line of inquiry had drifted too far from “Contemplating the next major revolution in science”, and deserved its own thread.

[Coronus]

The theory of everything perhaps...The quest to join the two dominant theories together.....General relativity that explains the cosmos in a grand scale and quantum physics that looks at the finer details...We have a lot of problems to solve a lot....I mean from everything we come to learn and discover we are faced with yet another set of problems...that in turn is the beuty of sciens it's ever evolving nature and with this forseen theroy of everything we might be faced with a hard fact that totally destroys our understanding of physics as we know it....And that's only talking about physics...A new revolution in science is eminent that much is for sure....

And something else I thought I'd point out technology and science while they do go hand in hand they are two differentl fields so a technological revolution is not quite a scientific revolution...Just like the Egyptians their technology was rather advance but their scientific knowledge flawed...So speculation here of a technological breath through is not really relevant I suppose...

[Kayra]

And something else I thought I'd point out technology and science while they do go hand in hand they are two differentl fields so a technological revolution is not quite a scientific revolution...Just like the Egyptians their technology was rather advance but their scientific knowledge flawed...So speculation here of a technological breath through is not really relevant I suppose...

 

Very astute

[HydrogenBond]

One of the contemporary trends in physics is divergence. In other words, rather than physics being based on consensus, physics is being developed down many divergent paths. For example, mass is mass, energy, waves, space-time, strings, etc. If physics is to become part of the next revolution in science all the divergent orientations need to integrate like they were when the nuclear stuff was being developed It is now sort of like scientific polytheism with many gods of physics. Once it becomes scientific monotheism again (one concensus orientation) things will move very quickly to the future.

 

The problem with scientific polytheism is that each is marketed as the answer, with some mutually exclusive. That implies that some may be illusions of science but are given relative footing due to the polytheism. If one choses unwisely, one could end up with nothing in the end. But there is no consenus way to determine which most reflects reality, since they all appear to have strong arguments and can correlate the data.

 

For example, if I said gravity is due to the repulsion of matter by space, one could end up with a good correlation that is out of touch with reality. Nowadays, if someone presented exhaustive math they could create a new god of physics for even further scientific divergence. This may even create a following if it is able to make all the same predictions and then become the basis for further speculation. Under the constraints of integration, it would be probally thrown in the garbage heap.

 

One constraint of integration could be simplicity. Complexity allows too much room for fudge factors.

[Michaelangelica]

Looking at the History of Science and Ideas I find it fascinating the number of major scientific ideas sat in limbo for years if not centuries or Eons.

The Ancient Greek concept of a round world for example

Lots of medical ideas like inoculation and circulation of the blood

 

When I studied "Attitude Change" in a Psy Uni course one factor in an idea being accepted was the status of the person proposing the idea. High status individuals had their idea accepted by the group more readily.

(This really helps fraud in science see Thalidomide story)

So you might find a lot of brilliant ideas languishing, not published, or in some dusty library proposed by some poor low status individual..

I guess this links up with the Philosophy of History where historical ideas are accepted when their time has come.

 

I would like to see less specialisation in Education and more broadening Education because I think the next major revolution in science will come from someone with a good grasp of many fields.not some Phd student rabbiting away on some arcane aspect of bridge building.

An original idea or invention is, after all, no more than putting two or more previously incompatable things/ideas together.

[Qfwfq]

one factor in an idea being accepted was the status of the person proposing the idea. High status individuals had their idea accepted by the group more readily.

This is true, in that a researcher's reputation counts, but it isn't the whole show. Most of the names on publications aren't famous at all, this doesn't mean that they pass unconsidered. Only if an article makes somewhat outlandish claims and it isn't simple to check over their whole reasoning, people will bother a lot less or be more willing to consider it, according to reputation.

 

It's a matter of practicality, in a sense, and it forces researchers to be careful not to ruin their reputation, which means that the whole volume of everyday contributions doesn't need to be so systematically re-checked; even when the name isn't famous others take their word for it in lack of contrary reason. Look at the volume of results, try expecting each one to be checked by everyone else...