what are some of the problems we're facing right now in the science communities?

[jerryyu]

It can be the disadvantages of certain technology. For example, the low-efficiency of a solar panel.

[ajb]

The biggest problem we are facing in the UK is a series of cuts and freezes in the level of funding.

[lemur]

Some of us who lost funding/jobs long ago because we studied practically unfunded disciplines are not expecting to be showered with funding any time soon. The problem for us becomes how to sustainably participate in economic self-maintenance without losing one's basic academic/research interests and a sense of importance. Non-academic culture has a bad habit of dismissing issues that aren't directly relevant to the goal of making money or solving immediate technical problems. It is therefore tough to avoid conforming to this view and maintaining a sense of relevance for academic-type thought and research.

[Athena]

I am becoming increasingly concerned about global warming and the wars this has caused in Africa, because such inhumane conditions will spread as the problems with a water shortage in some areas, and flooding in others, spread. I think our early realization of what technology can do for us, lead to totally unrealistic expectations and the reality of the Military Industrial Complex which is excessive materialistic. On the good side, this rapidly advanced science and technology. Now we are smart but lack the wisdom we need to use our technology well. Mass education must also include good moral judgment and this is better with science than religion. However, in the rush to rapidly advance technology for military and industrial purpose, we dropped education for good moral judgment and left moral training to the chruch. This is devastatng.

 

We are in such a mess with science and technology without values on the one hand, and religion without science on the other! I believe, what we can achieve if we put a sense of awe and reverence and humanism together, with our advanced science and technology, is really awesome. It has to come together, because we are democracies and only those values and dreams we share, will get public funding. If we continue down the path of state nexus rather than family nexus, we are doomed. This is not the kind of power that can get us through the challenges we face at this time. Military might is not going to reduce a mass die off, nor lead to a desirable quality of life, and it will not protect our liberty and justice. We have to get humanism and science back together, and curb religion with scince as well.