Is Nobel Prize suffocating science ?

[Chriss]

I was wondering after reading a Dean Keith Simonton article about geniuses

http://izt.ciens.ucv.ve/ecologia/Archivos/ECO_POB%202013/ECOPO1_2013/Simonton%202013.pdf

 

if Nobel Prize is to blame because science it became a trend, fancy. And people who can have ideas are rejected.

 

What you think ?

[ajb]

I am not sure the Nobel prize has much to do with anything, so few people get awarded them. A bigger problem could be that your grant proposals needs to be 'trendy' at the time of submission. This could be seen as a barrier for preventing the study of the more 'on the edge' science. This I think is for sure true of young postdocs and similar who need to work on something not too unfashionable in order to get a job at the end of it.

 

Once established you may have a lot more freedom. For sure some more speculative ideas by big names will get attention while speculations by less well-known people will tend to get less. Of course there are exceptions to this.

[Strange]

I wonder if it is also because the "easy" things have been done. In the past, a single scientist or small team could discover something totally new, and frequently did. Now, perhaps there are just fewer new things that can be discovered in that way.

 

Maybe that is supported by his suggestion that most areas of science are not in "crisis"; there are no really fundamental unknowns (not known unknowns, anyway).

Edited November 11, 2014 by Strange

[Chriss]

What can be done to have again names like Marie Curie, Roetgen etc. like they where in 1900 to 1930 ?

[swansont]

What can be done to have again names like Marie Curie, Roetgen etc. like they where in 1900 to 1930 ?

 

What does that even mean? Are you asking what we can do to have some more household names in science? That's like asking what we can do to have names again like Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. The problem is that you can only have one instance of being first to land on the moon. Once it's done, you can never be first again.

 

Basic physics has been discovered. Quantum mechanics has been discovered. Physics advances, or even paradigm shifts, of the future are going to be on scales that do not impact everyday macroscopic observation.

[Delta1212]

What we really need is a modern day Einstein or Stephen Hawking.

[Strange]

What we really need is a modern day Einstein or Stephen Hawking.

 

We have at least one of those...

[Bill Angel]

I wonder if it is also because the "easy" things have been done. In the past, a single scientist or small team could discover something totally new, and frequently did. Now, perhaps there are just fewer new things that can be discovered in that way.

 

Maybe that is supported by his suggestion that most areas of science are not in "crisis"; there are no really fundamental unknowns (not known unknowns, anyway).

NASA has a page discussing the current understanding of dark matter and dark energy:

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

What is dark energy? More is unknown than is known. We know how much dark energy there is because we know how it affects the Universe's expansion. Other than that, it is a complete mystery....What is dark matter? We are much more certain what dark matter is not than we are what it is.

[Strange]

NASA has a page discussing the current understanding of dark matter and dark energy:

http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-areas/what-is-dark-energy/

 

I agree there are lots of things we don't know. (And, in general, we know what it is we don't know.)

 

But the article talks about science needing to be in some sort of "crisis" due to a fundamental gap or contradiction in existing theory before a paradigm shift will be accepted. (I'm not completely convinced by that, but it is an interesting idea.)

 

The only such gap that I am aware of currently is in reconciling quantum theory and GR (which might answer the "dark energy" question). This may well require some totally new breakthrough. And that may be developed by some very clever individual (or two) but it is perhaps just as likely to be reached by an incremental series of advances by many people over time. But it isn't the sort of thing that can be stumbled across by chance (thinking of the Curies and Pasteur, from the article). That's what I meant by the "easy" things; the sort of thing any bright researcher could discover/work out.

[Delta1212]

(And, in general, we know what it is we don't know.)

I don't think that is really an entirely fair statement. Not to give credence to the "science is wrong about everything" people, but by there very nature, we don't know what the unknown unknowns are.

 

We seem to have a pretty good handle on a lot of things and we're running into fewer things that we didn't even know needed to be discovered before we stumbled upon them, but it's never going to be possible to state whether the things we don't know are generally things we know we don't know or not, since the things we don't know we don't know aren't quantifiable for comparison until after we know about them.

[Ophiolite]

We seem to have a pretty good handle on a lot of things and we're running into fewer things that we didn't even know needed to be discovered before we stumbled upon them, but it's never going to be possible to state whether the things we don't know are generally things we know we don't know or not, since the things we don't know we don't know aren't quantifiable for comparison until after we know about them.

I didn't know that.

[Strange]

I don't think that is really an entirely fair statement. Not to give credence to the "science is wrong about everything" people, but by there very nature, we don't know what the unknown unknowns are.

 

We seem to have a pretty good handle on a lot of things and we're running into fewer things that we didn't even know needed to be discovered before we stumbled upon them, but it's never going to be possible to state whether the things we don't know are generally things we know we don't know or not, since the things we don't know we don't know aren't quantifiable for comparison until after we know about them.

Indeed. There will always be unknown unknowns. And that is what makes science so exciting.

 

The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' but 'That's funny...'

[Chriss]

I still think that we need good minds in science for advancements like it was from Renneisance to 1930.

Today advancements in science are not known/understandable for all people like are the ones untill 1930s, like X-rays, radioactivity, photoelectric effect, particle accelerator, electronic microscope, alternating current and so on. That is my main ideea.

 

What about the human mind. I don t know if that is in crisis, but what about this subject ?

Edited November 18, 2014 by Chriss

[swansont]

I still think that we need good minds in science for advancements like it was from Renneisance to 1930.

Today advancements in science are not known/understandable for all people like are the ones untill 1930s, like X-rays, radioactivity, photoelectric effect, particle accelerator, electronic microscope, alternating current and so on. That is my main ideea.

 

What about the human mind. I don t know if that is in crisis, but what about this subject ?

 

You have to have an understanding of the physics of those things in order to understand more modern discoveries. Science builds on itself. The ground-floor window is accessible to many. The next floor up is tougher to access.

 

The Nobel Prize is not the reason for this.

[Chriss]

But what is the reason for this slowing down of science ?

[ajb]

But what is the reason for this slowing down of science ?

What slowing down of science? How are you measuring this? You mean little progress on big problems or something else?

[swansont]

But what is the reason for this slowing down of science ?

 

I second the call to establish that science has slowed down. We have more scientists publishing more articles in more journals today than in the 1900-1930 era. I attended a conference in August, and the the first (of three) Nobel-winners to speak commented on how today was such a great time to be doing atomic physics.

[Ophiolite]

But what is the reason for this slowing down of science ?

The only way you can justify this mistaken belief is by confusing tabloid journalism reporting of science with a seriously considered examination of the depth, breadth, complexity and cross-discipline cooperation of modern science. Have you actually read any papers on protein biochemistry, or seismic tomography, or high pressure phase changes, or crustal evolution of the terrestrial planets, or indeed any of the plethora of papers published in the last couple of decades?

[StringJunky]

The only way you can justify this mistaken belief is by confusing tabloid journalism reporting of science with a seriously considered examination of the depth, breadth, complexity and cross-discipline cooperation of modern science. Have you actually read any papers on protein biochemistry, or seismic tomography, or high pressure phase changes, or crustal evolution of the terrestrial planets, or indeed any of the plethora of papers published in the last couple of decades?

The thing is though that most things now aren't paradigm-changing ideas and that's probably what the OP alludes to. i think it's just too technical now for casual readers for the most part.

Edited November 23, 2014 by StringJunky

[Ophiolite]

The Devil is in the detail.

[StringJunky]

The Devil is in the detail.

Yes, the steps of progress have become shorter...and shorter. The christamas tree has been erected and now we are hanging the decorations.

[swansont]

The thing is though that most things now aren't paradigm-changing ideas and that's probably what the OP alludes to. i think it's just too technical now for casual readers for the most part.

 

That doesn't mean there has been a slowdown. And there is no guarantee that there are any more paradigm shifts to be found.

[Strange]

The thing is though that most things now aren't paradigm-changing ideas and that's probably what the OP alludes to.

 

There have been several paradigm shifts just in my lifetime. I don't see any reason for that to change. But they are infrequent and unpredictable (by definition).

 

I think the bigger problem is one of perspective and a natural bias. It is similar to the way people think that pop music was better when they were young. But they compare a few favourites from several decades, where they have forgotten all the dross, with what is happening "now".

[Chriss]

When the human mind will be discovered ?

[Strange]

When the human mind will be discovered ?

 

Are you suggesting that humans don't have minds?