Prometheus Bound

ISBN-13: 9780521434300 / Angielski / Twarda / 1994 / 300 str.

J. M. Ziman

Opis

After expanding steadily for centuries, science is reaching the limits to its growth. We can no longer afford the ever-increasing cost of exploring ever wider research opportunites. In the competition for resources, science is becoming much more tightly organized. A radical, pervasive and permanent structural change is taking place. It already affects the whole research system, from everyday laboratory life to national budgets. The scientific enterprise cannot avoid fundamental change, but excessive managerial insistence on accountability, evaluation priority setting and so on, can be very inhospitable to expertise, innovation, criticism and creativity. Can the research system be reshaped without losing many features that have made science so productive? This analysis of a deep-rooted historical process does not assume any technical knowledge of the natural sciences, their history, philosophy, sociology or politics. It is addressed to everybody who is concerned about the future of science and its place in society.

Recenzje

' … a deep analysis of the origins and extent of the changes that are affecting every facet of scientific enterprise and the lives of individual scientists and corporations.' New Scientist

Spis treści

Foreword; 1. What is happening to science?; 2. Scientific and technological progress; 3. Sophistication and collectivization; 4. Transition to a new regime; 5. Allocation of resources; 6. Institutional responses to change; 7. Scientific careers; 8. Science without frontiers; 9. Steering through the buzzword blizzard; Further reading.