Are humans limiting progress in science?

[Villain]

Unless we are getting more intelligent as a species, there will surely come a time when our processing power as humans can no longer move science forward assuming that we will not be intelligent enough to think beyond the boundaries that are presented. The assumption is based on the idea that at some stage someone with an IQ of 170 will not be able to go beyond the current theory even if it is understood to be flawed in some way but would require an IQ of 180 to do this. If you agree with what I am saying, how far away from this do you think we are? If you oppose, perhaps you could explain why?

 

If someone would like to introduce the role of computers in this please feel free to do so.

 

I'm not involved in science and am hoping to acquire some knowledge on the subject.

[dimreepr]

Unless we are getting more intelligent as a species, there will surely come a time when our processing power as humans can no longer move science forward assuming that we will not be intelligent enough to think beyond the boundaries that are presented. The assumption is based on the idea that at some stage someone with an IQ of 170 will not be able to go beyond the current theory even if it is understood to be flawed in some way but would require an IQ of 180 to do this. If you agree with what I am saying, how far away from this do you think we are? If you oppose, perhaps you could explain why?

 

If someone would like to introduce the role of computers in this please feel free to do so.

 

I'm not involved in science and am hoping to acquire some knowledge on the subject.

 

 

I don’t think it’s a question of IQ or human processing power. Modern science builds on the backs of giants, computers help but may never do more than help. As with the hundred meters record there’s always something to shave in terms of the fastest time, it’s an exponential curve that never reaches the zenith. In the past a giant like Newton or Einstein will move the goalposts and others add to that knowledge, there will always be something more to add.

 

 

[juanrga]

Unless we are getting more intelligent as a species, there will surely come a time when our processing power as humans can no longer move science forward assuming that we will not be intelligent enough to think beyond the boundaries that are presented. The assumption is based on the idea that at some stage someone with an IQ of 170 will not be able to go beyond the current theory even if it is understood to be flawed in some way but would require an IQ of 180 to do this. If you agree with what I am saying, how far away from this do you think we are? If you oppose, perhaps you could explain why?

 

If someone would like to introduce the role of computers in this please feel free to do so.

 

I'm not involved in science and am hoping to acquire some knowledge on the subject.

 

There is already computers as Adam discovering laws. In far future it is likely that human scientists get replaced by computer scientists.

[ecoli]

There is already computers as Adam discovering laws. In far future it is likely that human scientists get replaced by computer scientists.

 

And depending on how fast AI development goes, maybe not even far future.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Unless we are getting more intelligent as a species, there will surely come a time when our processing power as humans can no longer move science forward assuming that we will not be intelligent enough to think beyond the boundaries that are presented. The assumption is based on the idea that at some stage someone with an IQ of 170 will not be able to go beyond the current theory even if it is understood to be flawed in some way but would require an IQ of 180 to do this. If you agree with what I am saying, how far away from this do you think we are? If you oppose, perhaps you could explain why?

 

If someone would like to introduce the role of computers in this please feel free to do so.

 

I'm not involved in science and am hoping to acquire some knowledge on the subject.

When our models become too complex, we generally invent abstractions to cover up the details. For example, computing the motion of an object in some complicated situation can be very difficult or impossible using only algebra and arithmetic, but with clever use of calculus, the problem can become trivial. And once you've learned how to do calculus, you don't have to worry about the derivations and proofs of all its theorems -- you just apply the results and solve problems.

 

The same goes for more complicated results in physics as well. For example, parts of fluid dynamics are much simpler when you use complex analysis. The mathematics of complex analysis took many years to develop, and it was quite a painful course to me to take in college, but once you have the results, you can turn horrifying integrals into trivial ones and understand fluid dynamics much more easily.

 

So if we find that reality is just too complicated for our current theories to explain, we'll invent new mathematics and tools to describe it. Perhaps the mathematics will take years to develop and explore, but once it's worked out, scientists can use it to make new discoveries.

 

Of course, this applies well to physics, but not necessarily to disciplines like biology, where you're not always building a mathematical model but just trying to make sense of complicated phenomena. A given biological system might just be too complicated to figure out in one piece. But we have the advantage of computers and simulations to help us explore the complexity.

[juanrga]

And depending on how fast AI development goes, maybe not even far future.

 

Yes. Precisely I have been recently working in a encyclopedic article about science, and I gave a new definition of science that does not assume a human nature for the scientist. The main academic reference I cite is:

 

The Automation of Science 2009: Science 324(5923), 85–89. King, Ross D.; Rowland, Jem; Oliver, Stephen G.; Young, Michael; Aubrey, Wayne; Byrne, Emma; Liakata, Maria; Markham, Magdalena; Pir, Pinar; Soldatova, Larisa N.; Sparkes, Andrew; Whelan, Kenneth E.; Clare, Amanda.

Edited April 8, 2012 by juanrga

[JohnStu]

You bring up a very good point Original Poster. It is the geniuses that push science and technology to a higher level, not the average joes. The average joes just ride along the ship the geniuses drive for them. If it weren't for the geniuses, people would still be in stone age, never ever able to figure out how to move out of stone age.

 

Yes, technology is becoming increasingly difficult, acutually not mainly due to technology itself getting harder, but people sometimes puropsely make it more complex, so it seems like they've done more work.

 

Many coo-coo heads in society also put a damp on science progress, they actually diss science in many ways such as mocking Einstein. They also call people nerds when they are just jokeheads.

[Stuart]

Yes, sometimes with reason, but still a yes none the less.

[robheus]

This is some weird position, because you abstract science from human knowledge and human practice. If you assume human species is not capable of acquiring more knowledge then we actually can, then how do you explain the fact that scientific knowledge nevertheless has accumulated over the course of human history.

[Mohammad Shafiq Khan]

Yes! Humans are limiting the progress of science. Science by its nature cannot claim to be absolute but the present main-stream science is fighting tooth & nail against any challenge to it by all possible legal & illegal means.

Edited June 21, 2012 by Mohammad Shafiq Khan

[dimreepr]

Yes! Humans are limiting the progress of science. Science by its nature cannot claim to be absolute but the present main-stream science is fighting tooth & nail against any challenge to it by all possible legal & illegal means.

 

 

Paranoid nonsense, mainstream science doesn’t accept your challenges because they too are nonsense.

 

 

[Mohammad Shafiq Khan]

Paranoid nonsense, mainstream science doesn't accept your challenges because they too are nonsense.

 

 

Non-sense people will write non-sense.

[dimreepr]

Non-sense people will write non-sense.

 

 

Ouch, that burns...

 

 

[CherryTarantino]

If someone would like to introduce the role of computers in this please feel free to do so.

 

I would like to!

 

As for computers, unfortunatly the development of faster processors and memory and technology is, in my opinion, slowing down.

 

I do not know if you know anything about how a computer works so I wont go into too much detail incase you do not understand some of it.

 

But my reasoning for this:

I curerntly have a saturday job as an IT Technician so encounter Computers all the time and have noticed that the new processors and other hardware are not that much more advanced than the predosessors. We do not seem to be making faste components. To cover this up, it seems Intel and AMD, have been adding moer Cores into a processor (the part that does the calculations) and not getting any much more faster than before, maybe 0.05GHz faster.

 

I recently read Michio Kakus "Physics of The Impossible" book and in there it says about how we will reach the limits of Silicon computing by the Year 2020 so will not be able to get faster, therefore getting rid of Moore's Law (Moore's law is a rule of thumb in the history of computing hardware whereby the number of transistors that can be placed inexpensively on an integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years. Wikipedia). We would have to move onto Quantum Computer.. which right now the development of this is going slow too!

 

I do believe that humans are down to this, maybe if we were to spend some more money then we could get Quantum Computing going.

 

 

As for Humans:

 

The rate of sceinetific discovery is slowing I believe. I think that this is down to the fact science today is very completcated compared to what was say 100 Years ago. Back then, science was more basic and so were the experiments. The experiements did not require 10,000 workers, kilometers worth of magnets and piping etc etc as it does today. It is now harder to make scientific discoveries and we are not studying the Macroscopic, but things smaller than Atoms and Galazys light years across.

 

We may have bitten off more than we can chew... but we may catch up... we may not.

 

 

Some people may disaggre with me. If so I'd like to hear other peoples opinions on this matter!

[John Cuthber]

Non-sense people will write non-sense.

Takes one to know one.

[SomethingToPonder]

I doubt that it could even happen. Science is always about building on other's ideas,There are of course new ideas all the time, But more than often people build adjust or correct an idea that's already been put forward. And When you combine people together, Who knows what their Iq would be, An Iq Is not an exact measure of intelligence and im sure some people with average Iqs could come up with some valuable input to many things.
There are people with iq's of over 200. But most inventions you see came from people with Iqs not that high. together we can do anything even if we dont know it you are working with someone if you advance on their ideas.

We can never get to a rate where we have invented everything or learned everything we possibly could, The idea is fundamentally flawed. It goes against the laws of nature.

[cladking]

If intelligence were necessary to progress we'd still be living in caves.

 

Language makes progress possible. It was language that made it possible for Newton to see from the shoulders of giants.

[SamBridge]

Unless we are getting more intelligent as a species, there will surely come a time when our processing power as humans can no longer move science forward assuming that we will not be intelligent enough to think beyond the boundaries that are presented. The assumption is based on the idea that at some stage someone with an IQ of 170 will not be able to go beyond the current theory even if it is understood to be flawed in some way but would require an IQ of 180 to do this. If you agree with what I am saying, how far away from this do you think we are? If you oppose, perhaps you could explain why?

 

If someone would like to introduce the role of computers in this please feel free to do so.

 

I'm not involved in science and am hoping to acquire some knowledge on the subject.

There is a limit to physical brain capacity, and scientists already predict that, but that's not going to stop people from testing, the only thing that will happen if the IQ and technology stays constant is new things will be discovered but they will take a longer and longer amount of time to discover as the answers become more complex.

Edited January 12, 2013 by SamBridge

[cladking]

There are numerous reasons this entire subject is irrelevant to human advancement. Discovery is contingent upon knowledge and the tools we possess to seek this knowledge. While language is paramount in all regards each new instrument to measure some aspect of nature gives us more data allowing more hypotheses. Each new theory provides insights into other aspects of nature. When a new invention comes along it usually appears in numerous places simultaneously as new theory, new material, new instruments, and new data arises. There is no theoretical limitation to human knowledge however my guess is that we'll find that some leaps will be highly elusive and we might not survive out own follies in the search. Understanding chaotic behavior, long time periods, and very small scale will not come easily. But if it does come it will have nothing to do with intelligence because there virtually is none. This isn't to say this lack of intelligence will necessarily persist, merely that this is the status quo and until machine intelligence arises it will remain so.

[PeterJ]

I'd rather say that science, or science as we currently define and thus contrain it, is limiting progress in humans. But that's just me. .

 

I rather think that progress in physics will depend on making it more simple. As for the idea that AI machines may take over from physicists, I doubt this is anything to panic about. No instance of AI has ever been observed or even proved possible in principle. They're very good at adding and subtracting of course.

[Chad Makaio Zichterman]

Progress in general science, as in so many other things, is bound heavily to political conditions. The currently dominant economic order of human society (global capitalism) artificially limits the actual performance of most people on earth for the sake of a tiny few. Ethical judgments about this aside, from a research standpoint this is -- to put it mildly -- an atrociously inefficient way to arrange things. This is common to any coercive system or entrenched hierarchy...the comfort and privilege of elites is placed as a higher priority than the massive general gains which could be had through reduction or elimination of arbitrary force.

As things currently stand, just by raw numbers, we currently have more potential scientists (and potential advancements and breakthroughs) lying in wait for us but left unexamined NOT because those who might help find them are running up against bureaucratic obstacles (though that does occur), but because they never got so much as a high-school level education, or they have to spend 80% of their waking hours scraping up rent for a landlord, or they were born the "wrong" sex / "race" / raised into the wrong culture or religion for intellectual pursuits, etc.

Most people alive today will live out most (maybe even all) their lives never having any substantive opportunity to really explore their own potential, and that's just at the individual scale. At the group and institutional level the obstacles to exploring our potentials are even more arbitrary and entrenched, as those who stand to benefit from preserving our current hierarchies have rigged the game to keep things as they are.

We've barely scratched the surface of what we can do, and this will remain the case until and unless we manage to throw off the shackles of not just personal limitations, but major institutional ones as well.

[SamBridge]

I'd rather say that science, or science as we currently define and thus contrain it, is limiting progress in humans. But that's just me. .

 

I rather think that progress in physics will depend on making it more simple. As for the idea that AI machines may take over from physicists, I doubt this is anything to panic about. No instance of AI has ever been observed or even proved possible in principle. They're very good at adding and subtracting of course.

That's true (possibly), but I would be careful, because the living things we know are just random combinations of molecules, yet somehow they make conscious life. Obviously there are ways to get consciousness from inanimate materials if we exist.

There's also just the sheer growth of human population, there are just more and more people to research and make advancements.

[too-open-minded]

I'm writing a science fiction novel about aliens.

 

In my book, the main alien civilization studying life and the universe have categories for different alien species. One of the categories, a tier 5 species is an alien species who has made it off their home planet and is sustaining life in space but due to low resources they start concentrating more on sustaining life than researching and science. Eventually evolving huge eyes due to limiting the amount of light and energy in their ships. Their lungs shrink and evolve to breath in thin air, putting them in a planetary biosphere would be like putting a human under water. They eventually become a shell of their former species

 

however I think humans have a long way to go before we have a limited progress in science.

Edited January 15, 2013 by too-open-minded

[PeterJ]

That's true (possibly), but I would be careful, because the living things we know are just random combinations of molecules, yet somehow they make conscious life. Obviously there are ways to get consciousness from inanimate materials if we exist.

There's also just the sheer growth of human population, there are just more and more people to research and make advancements.

'Obviously'? There is nothing obvious about it. Or, if there is, then philosophers of mind are all fools. It is found to be impossible to explain consiousness once we say that it is caused by inanimate materials, and this should be a clue as to what is obvious and what is not. Your comment is like saying it is obvious that planets follow circular orbits.

 

Yes. there are always more people, This is because scientific advances makes it possible to overcome natural checks and balances and allows the population to run riot. I sometime think that scientific advances are entirely the result of selfish genes.

 

I'm not knocking science, by the way, just the short-sightedness of the way we use it, and questioning the idea that we can measure human progress by how clever our gadgets are.

[Bill Angel]

I'm writing a science fiction novel about aliens.

 

In my book, the main alien civilization studying life and the universe have categories for different alien species. One of the categories, a tier 5 species is an alien species who has made it off their home planet and is sustaining life in space but due to low resources they start concentrating more on sustaining life than researching and science. Eventually evolving huge eyes due to limiting the amount of light and energy in their ships. Their lungs shrink and evolve to breath in thin air, putting them in a planetary biosphere would be like putting a human under water. They eventually become a shell of their former species

 

however I think humans have a long way to go before we have a limited progress in science.

I shouldn't think that their lungs would shrink to enhance breathing in thin air. I should think that their lungs might get larger or their blood chemistry change. See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/02/0224_040225_evolution_2.html