Background
The article „Das Ende der Wissenschaft“ ('Science's dead end') published in the NZZ (Neue Züricher Zeitung, Switzerland) on Sunday, 19th of June, 2011, is taken as a starting point to develop the key issues presented and discussed at the conference. In the article the author, James Le Fanu states:
„For science this is both the best and the worst of times. The best because its research institutions have never been so impressive, ist funding never more lavish. (...) So the best of times – but also the worst. Pose the question, What does it all add up to? and the answer, on reflection, seems surprisingly little – certainly compared to a century ago, when funding was an infinitesimal fraction of what it has become. In the first decade oft he 20th century, Max Planck's quantum and Einstein's special theory of relativity would together rewrite the laws of physics“.(1)
It is assumed that „Once it is possible to say 'this is how the universe came into being' anything that comes after is likely to be something of an anticlimax'.“ Also John Horgan asked in the December 1992 issue of the Scientific American: „Could science be brought to an end by scientists' belief that they have final answers or by society's reluctance to pay the bills?“
The conference will challenge this perspective by firstly asking whether we inquiry the world as it is since the Big Bang or whether we transform the world we do research into. Particularly in doing experiments we intervene in the world. Systems are far too complex to fully analyse or predict and control them. As Schurz puts it: „Complex systems, however, constitute a theoretical limitation to scientific progress because these systems are usually neither mathematically tractable nor even predictable by the use of high-powered computers, because of their extreme sensitivity of initial and boundary conditions.“
Secondly, society is asked to do much more than just paying the bills. Science generates options society has to engage with. Society has to contend for the design of its future. Giuseppe Testa and Helga Nowotny argue that making the gene visible encounters the visibility of values in society. Some voices refer to nature as an immutable ethical authority. But we are enabled to strive after human enhancement as humans and artifacts co-exist and transform each other: Humans are eager to transform their environment and to enhance human capabilities. Knowing more about our biology makes it even more difficult to integrate it into a coherent whole and in a pluralistic society values are heterogenous. Understanding life means to alter it.
On Friday evening James Le Fanu will give the opening presentation. On Saturday morning we will reflect our practices of doing research, experimentation and theory building. The afternoon is prepared to ask for the role of science in and for society.
Prof. Dr. Heidrun Allert
(1) ► Le Fanu, 2010: www.jameslefanu.com/articles/articlesscience-science's-dead-end
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