The sciences are being held back by assumptions that have hardened into dogmas, maintained by powerful taboos. I believe that the sciences will be regenerated when they are set free.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Somehow we must reintegrate the scientific with the popular and reconnect the future to the present. This is less a job for scientists, engineers, bureaucrats, and administrators and more a job for novelists, moviemakers, popularizers, and politicians.
I don't really know what the future of science is. Maybe we have come to the end of science; maybe science is a finite field. The inventions resulting from this finite field, however, are boundless.
Now in the 21st century, the boundaries separating chemistry, physics, and medicine have become blurred, and as happened during the Renaissance, scientists are following their curiosities even when they run beyond the formal limits of their training.
If scientists can't communicate with the public, with policy makers, with one another, the future is going to be held back. We're not going to have the future that we could have.
Science shouldn't be just for scientists, and there are encouraging signs that it is becoming more pervasive in culture and the media.
Maybe we could think of science as being like a nuclear chain reaction in which people and ideas bounce off each other, and if critical mass is reached, a new field is formed.
If you look at the history of our country over the last 100 years, there have been periods where science and research have been celebrated. They were really kind of held up as heroes in society, which encouraged a generation of people to go into these fields.
So now, if we don't fund the physical sciences, where will the Next Big Thing come from?
Although scientists can often be as resistant to new ideas as anyone, the process of science ensures that, over time, good ideas and theories prevail.
Science is a field which grows continuously with ever expanding frontiers.