on the roles of science

I've been thinking about how the role of scientific endeavor has morphed since the Scientific Revolution. What it's value has been, and what it has become.

One of our current controversial quests is to take advantage of what opportunity stem cells hold. Is the aspect of reality at stake here as great as that of Copernicus' heliocentric system or Giordano Bruno's infinite universe? Sciences battle with the church exists in the stem cell revolution, but is it as prevalent and restrictive as was the Roman Inquisition? The obvious answer is that no, it is not. Science has an easier time evolving in modern society because our paradigm since the Scientific Revolution has been to encourage the pursuit of knowledge. Since the breakdown and reconfiguration of the Church, theory has become a more friendly phenomenon. Theory then evolves into science much more naturally and with less turbulence. Scientific discovery glides into public gaze with less suspicion.

There are more scientists and, as such, more reason for the public to accept that what the scientific community promulgates. This is something that Thomas Kuhn does not talk about, and I wish he would have. He considers the role of individuals within the scientific community who are more bold than others, and who stimulate acts of revolutionary science. The roles of the other community members, however, are somehow uninteresting to Kuhns concepts.

The role of the scientific community, I think, is to speed up the process of insight. The scientific body gravitates toward one emerging framework or its opponent with the same outcome as the battle of superseding geniuses against the Roman Inquisition. Internal discordance now slows the progress of science instead of the fear of a shift in reality or religious allegiance. It's no less turbid than pre-Revolution, but certainly more urbane... there is no sabotage or torture in modern Science. I actually think that by handing the beast to itself, the Church has simply backed away from the recidivism of the tyrannical father and become the comforting grandmother to those who can't handle theoretical threats posed to reality.

So has it become easier for science to thrive since the Revolution? Yes. Has new knowledge become globally welcome instead of globally feared? To those territories who experienced a Scientific Revolution, yes. Has the quelling of that global fear opened new doors for the free emergence of scientific revolution? Perhaps.

Does revolutionary scientific discovery hold the same earth-shattering importance that it once did? Not really.

Does an individual scientist suggest as much importance to the growth and sustenance of the world as they did during the Renaissance? Well...

I like to hope that we do. But I will need more convincing as my career proceeds.

on the emergence and immersion of geniuses

R. Buckminster Fuller is an American architect who is known for patenting the geodesic dome design, and for the discovery of the carbon allotrope which is his namesake. He is - probably more accurately - known for the saying; "everyone is born a genius. Society de-geniuses them."

I think that Fuller's own history is a perfect example of his claim. I also agree strongly with this particular statement. For instance, the C60 allotrope known as the Buckyball or Buckminsterfullerene was actually discovered by Robert Kurl, Sir Harold Koto and Richard Smalley in 1985 . Their 1996 Nobel Prize gives these men their due credit, but in the limpid word of chemistry, the R. Buckminster Fuller is wrongly assumed to be a chemist, and the discoverer of Buckminsterfullerene. The point I aim to make here is that Fuller was incontestably a genius, but he is not known as such for the correct reasons.

Socioeconomic evolution has imbued the term "genius" with melange of defining characteristics with which I don't agree. Before I get in too deep with this assertion, I should clarify that I define genius as one whose unique curiosities become manifest. That's it. Psychometrics has tried admirably to find a way to assess intelligence on a relative scale, allowing the siting of geniuses and savants as they arise. In as much as these tests do have some value to designing our current educational system (with which I also have major discordance), they also serve as a societal breech to the acceptance of the creativity from which genius comes.

I am inclined toward the idea that genius emerges from reaching outside of paradigms, and happens independently of academic guidance. Fuller's genius is identifiable in his childhood endeavors into original architecture, tool design and novel propulsion methods; he was twice expelled from Harvard. Nikola Tesla invented the first paddle-less water wheel at the age of 4; he spent 1 term at the Charles-Ferdinand University in Prague. Francisco Goya; the last of the Old Masters and the first of the Modern. Mozart and Galileo... all geniuses oppressed or quelled by economic demand, marketing and immersion into societal constructs.

I supposed this is my way of letting out some steam from the pneumatic build up of my anxiety and ambivalent contention for graduate school.

I prefer to hope that I have something unique to offer the world of intellect and scientific discovery. While I was never a prodigal child, and have most definitely been the product of academia-induced ADD-promulgated study, there is still a chance that some modicum of genius might arise in the later stages of my own evolution.

In short, it is my profound hope that I am playing out Fuller's apothegm in reverse - that I have first been de-geniused by society, and am now in the midst of my journey toward emergence.