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  •  bingo... (4.00 / 14)

    most people in Systems Science and the new topological physics that I know would probably comment on your post by saying:

    We're at a bubble/paradigm shift, yes... but it has less to do with teh Science and more to do with the ontology of Westerners.

    We saw booms in the 1800's and 1950's because of two things: electricity and computers.... and steel and concrete.

    Now we've got computers telling us things that we can't wrap our brains around. Brian Greene I think pointed out that the only guy he knew who ever really "got" String Theory in the same intuitive way as Einstein "got" Relativity... is an Indian Guru... a kind of untrained savant in mathematics.

    I think most scientists would argue that mankind has a lot of catching up to do. Yes we're stuck... but it's not because of an "end" in what can be learned... but more that we're having a hard time completely re-orienting the Western Mind to grapple with systems dynamics... a model based on connnections rather than analytical differences. It'll take time. But I think genetics and nano-tech point to an opposite conclusion to the one the diarist draws.

    An interesting discussion though.

    U.S. blue collar vs. CEO income in 1992 was 1:80; in 1999 it was 1:475.

    by Lode Runner on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 04:26:39 PM PDT

    [ Parent ]

    •  Not just the Western Mind (4.00 / 10)

      It's not just the "western mind" that needs reorienting.

      We must acknowledge that we are becoming -- if not already -- post-human.

      Yup.  Think about it.  How many of us alive now will exist in purely human form at the moment of our deaths decades from now?  How many of us reading this have already benefitted from technology that extends our human capabilities?

      Any hip or knee replacements out there can surely testify to this.

      We are in the eye of a storm, one that once bridged may make being human utterly quaint and old-fashioned.  And we're not quite ready for this.

      I part with the diary entry for this reason; the author's points are worthy of continued and extensive discussion, but they are written from a human perspective about human achievement.  Frankly, the diarist mourns the end of human science.

      Here's a couple points to consider.  There's more that a "Blast from the Past" 1950's couple wouldn't grasp than meets the eye.  Like automobiles -- ever contemplate tuning a contemporary car?  Hah!  There's a lot more going on here; we've reached a point where we rely on computers to do what humans once did.  We may drive cars now as we did 50 years ago, but we rely on computers not only to BE the car, but to tune the car.

      What were the chances that someone suffering from cancer would have survived in the 50's?  What was the survival rate for heart attack and stroke victims?  Or premature infants?  

      Post-human, indeed.

      by Rayne on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 05:14:14 PM PDT

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      •  Down with 'Meat!' (4.00 / 3)

        An end to meat?

        I would agree.

        I think I read in Wired that the leading guys in nanotech are bragging about "immortality" only being 50 years off. Virus sized nano-bots that repair cellular damage in real time.

        Yowza!

        So, if that's just to get funding money... are we really only 100 years away?

        Big changes coming. Not an end... but big-ass changes that will look like an end to certain things...

        It's in part why I think the folks who used systems science for practical ends in large corporations and in the defense industry (ie Wolfowitz) are trying to radically redistribute wealth to the top.

        The new Feudalism is coming... maybe already here. And with Paul at the helm of the World Bank... I think we're locked in.

        U.S. blue collar vs. CEO income in 1992 was 1:80; in 1999 it was 1:475.

        by Lode Runner on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 05:41:05 PM PDT

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        •  Yup (none / 0)

          Not once in that article did they mention nanotechnology or molecular engineering (in its many forms).  Nor did it mention simulation and analysis of complex systems (such as the new theory of Maximum Entropy Production).  Or the windfall of discovery that will come with cheap sequencing technologies.  Or the fascinating questions of the nature and mechanisms of cognition and intelligence.  

          Admittedly the basic premise of simply running out of fundamental questions to ask (and the secondary premise of running out of ideas/hitting fundamental human limits of cognition) is a valid and troubling one.  But I don't think we're there yet by a long shot, and even if we should exhaust the fundamentals there are still the near-infinite manifestations of detail-oriented sciences like biology.  Their are big changes ahead for science and human society.  

          I definitely don't think that the oil crunch will slow us down much or that the space program has already peaked.  

          (-4.75, -3.64)

          by cryptochrome on Mon Aug 22, 2005 at 08:25:49 AM PDT

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        •  We are the robots.. (none / 0)

          Er.. I don't know if I believe the hype coming from Wired, but..  


          on strike.

          by daria g on Mon Aug 22, 2005 at 10:49:39 AM PDT

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      •  That's why (parts of) this diary are bunk (4.00 / 6)

        I don't mean to belittle the whole thing; there are certainly good points raised, especially about how too much of science is becoming commercial (leading to a lack of new concepts that might not be "profitable").  But I think that John Horgan needs to take a trip to a hospital sometime.  
        Take the UW-Madison hospital&clinics, where my brother was treated for cancer, for example.  There bone marrow transplants are fairly commonplace--basically, sending someone to the brink of death itself, then bringing them back.  If the diarist's theoretical '50s couple came to a hospital of today, they wouldn't believe that such a thing could ever exist (bone marrow transplants were first tried in the '70s).  If the couple's son had the type of cancer my brother had, he almost certainly would have died.  At best, he would have had a decent portion of his face (including his right eye) surgically removed, with only a small chance that that would have cured him.  Chemotherapy would have been right out of the question.  One scientist was ridiculed in 1948 for suggesting that leukemia (one of the most common childhood cancers) could be treated by any means.  It was not until 1958 that a single solid tumor (like the one my brother had) was cured by chemical means.  A government program to help develop drugs was not set up until 1955, and it was not until 1965 that more reliable treatments using combinations of drugs were suggested.  (It is also important when looking at these dates to remember that these drugs didn't gain widespread use until years after they were tested.)  For my brother, the cancer was intensely scary, and his survival wasn't assured, but it was over after one hellish year, and the side effects weren't debilitating.  For the '50s couple's son, it would have been a death sentence.  
        Today new technologies are in the works.  It's fine for the diarist to say that looking at ever smaller pieces of the universe is futile, but consider the world of genetics.  One of my brother's main doctors is working on a drug that will attack specific genes inside cells to keep them from creating more cancer cells (caveat: this is only my cursory understanding; what he's doing is infinitely beyond my layman's comprehension).  
        In 1843, Commisioner of Patents Henry Ellsworth testified to Congress that the flood of inventions at the time "taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end."  Needless to say, that time had not yet come.  Sure, maybe technologies in the home aren't changing much, and maybe humanity needs to get its research priorities in order.  But when I hear a doctor say that cancer in the future may be reduced to a "chronic  illness," more along the lines of diabetes or epilepsy (something that is "managed" over a long time, rather than in a short and brutal battle to the death), that icky feeling down in my stomach goes away.  

        "Ah, this is obviously some strange usage of the word 'safe' that I wasn't previously aware of." ~Arthur Dent, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

        by Entheate on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 06:56:47 PM PDT

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        •  great points (none / 1)

          ...I forget who said it, but where the big ideas of the 20th century were in physical sciences, the 21st is already, and will continue to be, the century of Biology.

          In my field (evolutionary biology) there are questions that can only begin to be answered emprically now that were untenable computationally five years ago due to processor speeds and growth of parallel computing.  

          It doesn't matter what the commercial applications might be for a project when you can put together a few dozen CPU's for a few thousand dollars to answer huge basic-science questions-- they're gonna get answered, and the answers are going to move basic science along.

          Make your free throws at the end of regulation, and you'll be ok.

          by El Sobrante on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 07:24:17 PM PDT

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          •  I disagree. (none / 1)

            The twentieth century saw some amazing medical advances.  These advances lurch forward out of nowhere, and they progress together.  Much more money is being dedicated to medical advancement right now, but this may not necessarily be the case as more people realize our problems with energy and the environment.  This will not only be an amazing century for medical/biological advancement but for other physical sciences as well.  

            For instance, behold: http://tinyurl.com/7tcpy

            Call me a flip-flopper again, and I'll kick your ass.

            by NambyPambyPinkoCommie on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 07:57:45 PM PDT

            [ Parent ]

        •  the state of research (none / 0)

          i don't know what "HUMIRA was created using phage display technology resulting in an antibody with human-derived heavy and light chain variable regions and human lgG1:k constant regions. This means, it resembles antibodies normally found in the body" means. but i do know two things:

          1) humira didn't exist four years ago.

          2) without it i would've killed myself by now.  

          biology. is where it's at.

          biological and medical research is wildly inefficient right now; instead of pushing the envelope (and the envelope <i> can </i> be pushed) the companies of big pharma are rushing 'me too' drugs to market - after changing the color of the pill from blue to purple - under new patents in order to protect their monopolies - instead of investing money in r&d, they drop a fraction of the money on marketing. and because of pharma's drug reps and CME (continuing medical education, put on and paid for by big pharma) and direct to consumer advertising the doctors and the public fall for it - and some physicians script the brand new drug for 100x the cost of the drug that just went off patent, even though they are both just as safe and just as effective - or worse, sometimes the older drug is safer and / or more effective.

          our government? complicit. we taxpayers fund research through grants to university scientists. the university transfers the patent to a drug company and then the public ends up paying drastically inflated prices - consider the taxpayers assumed much of the risk of intial research.

          two books, 'the truth about drug companies' and 'university inc.' - when read together present a pretty damning indictment of our research system - but they also give me hope, 'cus all of the problems presented are fixable. and if this system is still turning out the occasional new molecular entity, or two, that do nifty stuff like effectively control crohn's? well, we ain't running out of ideas.

          by mbc on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 10:15:08 PM PDT

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          •  Agreed (none / 0)

            The government -- this administration in particular -- is complicit.  They are not acting on behalf of the American public or global citizens, but on behalf of corporatists like themselves.

            The "purple pill" is but one example of excessive and unethical marketing of a product that should only serve a small, single digit percentage of the population.  Vioxx, Celebrex, Baychol, Crestor, so on, all of them pushed to market with inadequate controls or testing or warnings to citizens about risks, all of them approved by a government agency that was more concerned about helping Big Pharma than about helping the public.  All of these same drugs marketed to excess as well, at the expense of the patients buying these drugs misled to believe that these drugs were wonders they must have that were low to nil in risk.

            I hate to think that valuable research ends up dying in the pipeline simply because the costs to compete in the same market space against cash cows like Viagra and Celebrex make it impossible for a better, safer drug to succeed.

            by Rayne on Tue Aug 23, 2005 at 11:02:32 AM PDT

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      •  William Gibson And The Cyborg (4.00 / 4)

        If you want a mindblow, William Gibson's blog delivers with astounding consistency. Search the page for "cyborg" because the entry is four or five posts down. If you like what you see, I highly recommend his books.

        This is a long but AWESOME entry with direct relevance to this diary.

        By the way, this is the firt time I have ever ventured out of lurker status on this site. Hi, Everybody!

         

        A hairless rodent can be an implacable enemy...

        by Methion on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 08:46:57 PM PDT

        [ Parent ]

        •  Welcome to Kosville... (none / 0)

          feel free to offer whatever contributions you think would be relevant.

          Republicans are afflicted by CHIDS-Chronic Humor and Irony Deficit Syndrome, pronounced 'kids' with a parental sigh.

          by stumpy on Mon Aug 22, 2005 at 09:11:36 AM PDT

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      •  Post human eh? (none / 0)

        Maybe. Symbiotic relationships tend to spur on evolution. Although I feel as though I'm symbiotic with a computer at times (you know what I mean, when you know the answer in discussion but you can't hit that synapse and the name is on the tip of your tounge, but you know exactly what to google and can find it in 6.3 seconds with a computer) it's still not organic. But then, we've just begun a whole new debate/ concept to take in mind. Do i smell a diary?

        by jammin90mph on Mon Aug 22, 2005 at 07:18:28 AM PDT

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      •  Heh. (none / 0)

        Western mind? reorienting?

        I like it.

        -- war-weary.

        by peacemonger on Mon Aug 22, 2005 at 09:50:21 AM PDT

        [ Parent ]

        •  Less linear (none / 0)

          Exactly.  We could stand to be a little less linear and a little more matrix-like, embrace dualistic thinking and then some.  Science meets zen.

          But that is the very crux we're on; it's the difference between solving problems using traditional linear equations and using Wolfram's cellular automata.  And using multiple layers, multiple degrees of complexity of those cellular automata at the same time.

          The diarist suggests an end to something; part of it is this transition between the neat simplicity of linear solutions and the next level, where ubiquitous and nearly free computing will be able to process multiple portions of a non-linear problem at the same time.  I think we've not run out of problems, but run out of simple ones that can be expressed simply.  It's time for us to evolve to that next level.

          by Rayne on Tue Aug 23, 2005 at 11:10:52 AM PDT

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    •  Reading about string theory (none / 1)

      Is, for me, sort of like reading about Buddhism or listening to a Bach 2-part Invention. There's something that ties them together, but I don't know what it is.

      War is not an adventure. It is a disease. It is like typhus. - Antoine De Saint-Exupery

      by Margot on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 05:16:01 PM PDT

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    •  It's worth checking out Michio Kaku on strings (4.00 / 8)

      We tend to agree with your comment about it being a paradigm shift period.

      Physicist Michio Kaku is the co-founder of the string theory and a very, very progressive guy. String theory is more accessible than people think. You don't have to be a mystic savant to integrate it into your world view. Kaku has written many books aimed for mass readership, and if given a chance, he can get most people to "get it."

      He has also written several books on war and politics, and does a weekly radio show on science, technology, politics and the environment.

      As we recall, he came from a family that was interned in the U.S. during WWII. Although this clearly has been a factor in how his thinking developed, the guy is incredibly optimistic and exciting to listen to.

      Kaku's Asian heritage may have something to do with his ability to synthesize string theory with the rest of physics.

      We expect to Kaku get the Noble prize one day.

      Hypothetically Speaking: News, questions and commentary about politics and government in Ohio

      by Hypothetically Speaking on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 05:30:36 PM PDT

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      •  Yes... 'Hyperspace' is sitting in front (none / 0)

        of me on my bookshelf.

        Great points... and great links! A 4 for you.

        U.S. blue collar vs. CEO income in 1992 was 1:80; in 1999 it was 1:475.

        by Lode Runner on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 05:35:39 PM PDT

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      •  I read Dr. Kaku's book "Hyperspace" (none / 0)

        years ago, when he used to frequent a certain message board on AOL about ten years ago. I lent that book out and never got it back but I recall how well he explained things for the layman. I understand he believes in intelligent design, or am I wrong? In any case I will have to pick up that book again. Tell him that the folks over at Cosmic Discussions are still there, all 12 of us, and we appreciate his good work.

        NOT THIS TIME!

        by donailin on Sun Aug 21, 2005 at 07:01:46 PM PDT

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        •  Where did you get that idea about Kaku and ID? (none / 0)

          That is a disturbing allegation. It would mean that he discards everything in the field of complexity. I've met him and read several of his books and never got that vibe. I've noticed that lately he's become the science go-to guy for a lot of MSM, which is a good thing.

          You fell victim to one of the classic blunders, the most famous of which is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia".

          by yellowdog on Mon Aug 22, 2005 at 04:08:49 AM PDT

          [ Parent ]

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