Is science is slowing to a standstill ?

[nameta9]

After decades of hype regarding how fast and how revolutionary scientific research was supposed to be, here we are in a world that is indeed almost identical to the one of 30 or 40 years ago. Yes we may have more "gadgets" but aside from the internet and only a few really new technologies or discoveries, all the hype surrounding science is revealing that it was only hype. Companies and governments spend less and less on basic scientific research, they prefer to create combination products ony to sell more like cell phones with cameras etc.

All the revolutionary applications of computers haven't changed none of the fundamentals of the world, we still need gas to go around etc.

 

It may be in general that the human mind is actually very limited in how much it can really manipulate matter. Maybe the mind sees reality through a false grid that can rarely let it really manipulate past a certain complexity or set of interactions matter in general. We still cannot even create a simple protein from scratch even though the first experiments were started in the early 50s,

We have no idea how even 2 or 3 chemical reactions in the cells interact etc

[Skye]

We still cannot even create a simple protein from scratch even though the first experiments were started in the early 50s

Yes we can, look up Merrifield solid phase peptide synthesis. First published in 1969.

 

We have no idea how even 2 or 3 chemical reactions in the cells interact etc

Of course we do.

[Ophiolite]

here we are in a world that is indeed almost identical to the one of 30 or 40 years ago.

You seem to be talking technology not science.

Forty years ago plate tectonics had just made an appearance in the Earth Science journals. It was possible to take a course in geology at one of the top Universities in the UK and have that topic barely be referred to. Major inconsistencies in the geographic distribution of ancient ecologies and sedimentary sequences existed. The causes of the geochemical diversity of lavas was undefined. The salt cycle was not understood. Pre-Cambrian paleogeography was sketchy. The list goes on.

Today, from the enrichment of the plate tectonic hypothesis, earth science has been transformed.

I find your premise to be flawed for geology and suspect it is equally flawed for most other sciences.

[nameta9]

Won't argue the details, there is some progress. But progress is getting slower and slower. Artificial intelligence is just about where it was 30 years ago, and the chemical reactions circuits even in the simplest cells are barely understood.

 

It may be that this is the most we will ever get; passenger jet planes at 800km/h, (concorde failed economically). Windows PCs with lots of pretty pictures and mpeg films, cars that will never fly etc. Maybe in the year 5,000,000 the world will look just like it is now without ever having progressed much more.

 

It could very well be that our mind doesn't have the instruments to go any further, that maybe our use of logic and/or mathematics is flawed past a certain point. Who knows... maybe there are other instruments and science shouldn't use math....

[atinymonkey]

Won't argue the details' date=' there is some progress. But progress is getting slower and slower. Artificial intelligence is just about where it was 30 years ago, and the chemical reactions circuits even in the simplest cells are barely understood.

[/quote']

 

I think you are confusing science with engineering.

[Ophiolite]

Won't argue the details, there is some progress.

The progress is in the details.

I repeat my earlier remark - "You seem to be talking technology not science." and ATM "I think you are confusing science with engineering."

Which is it?

Because I can make a solid case for either.

[nameta9]

Bottom line: science can invent the theory of everything with all the formulas, particles, experiments and know everything, but the possibility to "manipulate" matter (applied science ) may just remain limited even though we may end up knowing everything. Knowledge without the possibility of manipulation may just end up being an elegant philosophy.

 

I also think there are very strong ECONOMICAL - SOCIAL - CULTURAL - POLITICAL forces that greatly limit how and what we manipulate, alongside with the fact that we may never be able to reach any greater degree of manipulation. We went to the moon in 1969 and are still having a hard time getting back for example. In the same time spand it is hyped that our computers are a million times better.

 

Make your solid case for both, lets see.......

[Christ slave]

You cannot solve the world's problems from without. The more technology and outward adornment you pile on, the heavier the weight...the heavier the weight, the more you simply bulk up like a weight lifter.

 

Now, do we necessarily care about these muscles? Or, do we care about what is within? Only when you recognize that just like that body builder who is subject to atrophy, rotting, and death, so we too are interested more about what lasts forever. And, what is more beautiful? A loud obnoxious woman, or a quiet, gentle woman? You cannot pile the loud obnoxious techologies and call them intelligence and success...no, because success comes from within, like a quiet, gentle woman.

 

You cannot evolve by constant outward pursuit and adornment, because such things do likewise atrophy. We are recognizing that the 80s pornographic revolution is dying off because it's nothing but a mindless, endless pursuit of trash. This is likewise where science is going and society, as we begin to look within rather than outwardly again. When you do this, you realize that looking outward was a mistake, because success and the roots come from within--like the roots that sprout from a seed.

 

So, are we at a standstill? Not if you begin to look within--to find the spirit. In fact, a lot of things are moving in the direction of spirituality and whatnot, as even science has verified that a woman, using her spirit, can be proven to heal other people. This is not a fluke nor a lie, the scientists did not make this up. Do you think spirituality ends here? If we are looking for healing, why then would you ignore that which is optimal? Science is beginning to become unparalyzed when they venture into spiritual means, while other areas remain paralyzed because they are forming their lives around other people's hard work (which came from spiritual people, including Isaac Newton who even spent lots of time looking for a Bible Code) and scientific materialism, and now as they attempt to root out spirituality, they become paralyzed because they think they can take over people's hard work and ideas and somehow remain alive and kicking. No, you cannot simply gut spirituality away from science as it has been so profoundly a strong factor in many large scientific icons in the past and then assume you can somehow takeover and reshape everything to suit your needs. People still have to submit to the rules, because you can't assume that an airplane, just because you say it can, can fly without wings or a propellar or even fuel.

 

Rather, you must follow the shepherd...

[atinymonkey]

Or, kill the shepard and dance on his zombie bones. Either way is good. Neither helps nameta9 in any way.

[bascule]

Scientific progress slowing? Seems to me it's accelerating at an exponential rate...

[nameta9]

The question is very simple. I have a feeling that science is slowing down and can eventually just stop. Here I mean especially applied science / technology since as I said science as knowledge can expand forever but its practical applications may not. Knowledge is not the question, it is how much we can manipulate matter to our desires. There are 2 cases:

 

1) we can't manipulate past a certain point: time travel is not possible, eternal life is not possible, visiting other stars is not possible, infinite pleasure is not possible etc.

 

2) we can manipulate matter to any extent. All the above and more is possible.

 

If the case is 1 then this means there are some fundamental limits in our mind as to how we understand and manipulate matter, if the case is 2 the sky is the limit.

 

From the past decades everything is pointing to the case 1: we can't manipulate past a certain point.

[swansont]

It depends on how you measure the progress. The easy stuff has been done already. But there are sciences today that weren't dreamed of 40 years ago. Witness biotechnology and the tremendous increase in lifespan achieved in the time frame in question.

 

It's not just a question of whether there is "fundamental limits in our mind" but also if there are fundamental physical limits.

 

And if you define the problem as nebulously as you have, there will always be the wiggle room to make sure nobody contradicts you.

[Ophiolite]

make your solid case for both, lets see.......

I am going to open with a field I am familiar with: the oil and gas drilling industry. And within that I shall consider only the development of drill bits.

Forty years ago these were what are called roller cone bits. Their teeth were milled from steel and coated with a welded hardmetal. Their bearings were unsealed and lubricated by the drilling fluid. They would last perhaps twelve hours before they had to be pulled from the hole and replaced. In that time they would drill between six feet and fifteen hundred feet depending on how soft the rock was.

Today an equivalent bit will drill for up to one hundred and fifty hours and as much as six thousand feet through harder formations. Bits without bearings and cutting elements of synthetic diamond can drill for as much as three hundred hours in some applications. The world record for total interval drilled is over twenty thousand feet.

If you think oil is pricy at $50 a barrel be glad these developments have occured. Without them the price would be very much higher. These developments have been matched in every aspect of the drilling operations: rig architecture; drive systems; drill pipe technology; cementing techniques; directional drilling; formation evaluation; drilling fluid performance; all of them are almost unrecognisable compared wiith forty years ago. This has enabled the discovery and development of fields that would otherwise be impossible technically, or impractical economically.

These are massive advances. They are continuing apace.

I suggest that the same kind of advances can be found in almost any industrial sector. I guess if you still dispute that the next stage will be educational for us both.

[Mokele]

infinite pleasure is not possible etc.

 

You've never met my girlfriend...

 

Windows PCs with lots of pretty pictures and mpeg films

 

You're confusing economicly driven engineering decisions with capability-driven decisions. There's a big difference between "what we can make?" and "what do enough people want that it's profitable to make?".

 

Of course we've advanced. But the public's tastes have not. Hence why we haven't been back to the moon, yet we have a mechanical, sound-activated, plastic, singing bass.

 

cars that will never fly

 

Damn skippy! Whenever we have flying cars, I'm living in an undergound bunker and *NEVER EVER* coming out.

 

Have you *seen* the people on the roads? These people can't handle 2 degrees of freedom (one of which is very limited), let alone 6!

 

Mokele

[nameta9]

Well I guess there is progress. I don't know all the fields and accept what experts say. Maybe what I expected is a change in fundamental "lifestyle" given that for example teleworking could be easily achieved but is rarely used etc.

 

I would say that the fundamental physical limits are probably not important because before reaching those limits we could create perfect simulated and virtual realities hooked up to our brains capable of simulating everything conceivable, robots that are capable of carrying out all the work there is to do,

100 % control over all our biology, cell chemistry, mind circuits, and hundreds of other extremely perfected technologies to achieve anything etc. I don't think we will run into "physical" limits but into conceptual-logic-scientific limits in our understanding and capability to manipulate matter.

[nameta9]

I suggest that the same kind of advances can be found in almost any industrial sector. I guess if you still dispute that the next stage will be educational for us both.

 

Why is the totally automatic factory not here ?

 

It depends mostly on computers that are hyped to be a million times faster and cheaper then 30 years ago, but we still have factories that operate with cheap labor and some are even substituting the robots with cheap labor. The japanese and GM studied this problem alot but in the end it can't be done. So this an example of real scientific/technology HYPE.

[Ophiolite]

Why is the totally automatic factory not here ?

 

It depends mostly on computers that are hyped to be a million times faster and cheaper then 30 years ago' date=' but we still have factories that operate with cheap labor and some are even substituting the robots with cheap labor. The japanese and GM studied this problem alot but in the end it can't be done. So this an example of real scientific/technology HYPE.[/quote']It seems (and I am ready to corrected) that you are more concerned about the projections made by non-scientists and non-engineers in documentaries and the press about the possible future. This has always been blown out of proportion: its about selling papers or advertising space etc. You can't use the argument - 'they said we would have this and we don't' to justify your claim we do not have progress. I have given a detailed example of the progress within a single narrow field - you have attempted to refute it with "Why is the totally automatic factory not here ?" But what you have to do is to look at where factory automation stood in the 1960s and compare that with where it stands today. The differences are huge. The progress is drantic. The effects are substantial.

Earlier you said why had we not returned to the moon. Answer. Politics. There is no technical limit on this. All we have to do is to spend the money. And while we are at it, there is no way the current Mars probes or the Huygens probe could have been undertaken forty years ago. The early Mariners and Voyagers were pale imitations of the current generation of interstellar probes.

I began debating your point as much to exercise my mind as to actually challenge you, but the more I have thought about it the more convinced I have become that your postulate does not and cannot stand up to scrutiny.

I suggest an interesting aspect of this is how we might accurately predict the development of technology over a given time period and do so without the hype.

[Pangloss]

Perspective is an incredible distortion of reality.

[bascule]

Perspective is an incredible distortion of reality.

 

Which is why reproducable, common observations between individuals are the only objective means of studying reality...

[nameta9]

Well then maybe the real limits are "mostly" politics and cultural choices and economical choices. It is often said an average worker now makes less money than in 1970 (example of going backwards) and it seems the working hours are longer (example of going backwards). There were alot more choices for car interiors and they were even nicer (just compare an oldsmobile 98 of 1970 with any luxury car today) (another example of going backwards). People are more into fundamentalist religion than science (an example of going backwards) and this list can go on and on. Why can't we have cars that drive themselves ? There are no complicated technologies involved just sensors on roads and wireless communications and computers, all things we have "advanced" in. Because we are not able to do it. If there are economic-political reasons than science will eventually just end and mostly be "fake". We will have loads of video games maybe......

[Sayonara]

It is often said an average worker now makes less money than in 1970 (example of going backwards) and it seems the working hours are longer (example of going backwards). There were alot more choices for car interiors and they were even nicer (just compare an oldsmobile 98 of 1970 with any luxury car today) (another example of going backwards). People are more into fundamentalist religion than science (an example of going backwards) and this list can go on and on.

I am sure that one could make good arguments to support some of these examples, but what do they have to do with science slowing to a standstill?

 

The cause and effect in any of those scenarios does not add up.

[nameta9]

You are right. There is no relationship between scientific/technological progress and the improvements of lifestyles. Actually lifestyles could even get worse and worse (poorer and poorer etc) while some aspects of science and technology progress. This is also another example where alot of HYPE of how man would "benefit" through science/technology. We may have a billion cell phones but no drinking water and food and no gas for cars etc.

 

More in gneneral even if science/technology does slow to a standstill this does not mean that we know the limits of matter. Matter as such may have enormous potentials for complex organization, we may just never be able to manipulate it past a certain point. See

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/forums/showthread.php?t=10401