"Science" usefulness has ended? So what?

Science may stop being profitable, never useful. Even if it's old. Actually, ESPECIALLY if it's "old".

A couple of weeks ago, the Honest Sorcerer discussed "the end of science as a useful tool". I would like to contribute with my own reasons why, even if it were true, it wouldn't be a big deal. Science as useful tool is ending, says the Sorcerer, because:

• anything like the newest smartphone is not a sign of “unstoppable progress”, just the "industrial scale refinement of technologies based on a set of already established principles".

• "when the entire industry you're in keeps hitting the repeat button with every product release, then you know that you are in trouble. A big one."

• "Based on the pace of scientific progress till the 1960’s, we ought to be driving flying cars powered by anti-gravitational engines by now. On Mars. But we don’t."

• (quoting a 2010 study on Complexity and the productivity of innovation) "Our investments in science have been producing diminishing returns for some time" (more on this later)

• "AI will certainly generate material prosperity to a select few, but not to society as a whole" (of COURSE, I say)

The Sorcerer then mentions Sabine Hossenfelder’s three hypotheses for lack of scientific progress (denialism, actual lack of more stuff to discover and a badly broken way to do science) and adds his own: "I would argue, and many teachers would certainly agree: we are already well past our peak in human mental capabilities as a culture." (A newer video by Hossenfelder about the genius who is rebuilding physics on the axyom that 1+1 = 2 would support that hypothesis)

The Sorcerer then moves to the much bigger issue that's outside of science as such, presented in Hossenfelder's video about flat earthers:

“[F]lat earthers are the first symptom of a much bigger problem. They show us what happens when people realize they can’t understand modern science, don’t trust scientists and therefore throw out even the most basic scientific knowledge on the rationale of skepticism. […] Sometime in the middle of the 20th century or so we reached a point where modern science just stopped being comprehensible to anyone without a special degree.

I't's not just about science...

This is important because, of course, it isn't limited to science. Borrowing from Srinivasan and Bardi:

• "The faith in the State is plummeting in parallel with that in Science"

• "Science, religion, the law system of a state, and some other elements of society we normally take for granted... are all communication tools. You could define them as "languages.""

Source: “What doing a PhD does to your faith in science”

But maybe it's not a big deal

The Honest Sorcerer rightly points out that "Technology is not science. It is the application of scientific discoveries." For ordinary people, however, science and technology are pretty much the same thing, and in any case the useful tool whose end would really matter for them is technology, not science. Are they ending? I can't exclude that, having said myself that these days there is little as obsolete as what the most visible people call innovation, and even stuff like the Metaverse is just narrow-minded, reactionary thinking.

Now, let me add my own hypothesis. Hossenfelder is surely right to say that science stopped being comprehensible to anyone without special degrees. However, I don't think that's why people don't trust scientist, or something we should seriously worry about anyway.

To begin with, I argue that common people lost faith in both technology and science not because they do not understand them anymore, but because they do not understand the problems that those disciplines triumphantly declare they solve, or will solve.

That is, the problem is not that quantum physics is impossible to master without years of hard study powered by the right genes, which it is. The problem is when those "languages" are used, by the usual suspects who suck all the oxygen in the media, just to talk, no: sell crap. Especially if it's the crap only they sell.

The problem is that, even if we are tricked to buy them, we are frustrated from the impossibility to understand what's the damned REAL problem and need that e.g foldable smartphones, home appliances that can be bricked WITHOUT your consent or fake autonomous vehicles are supposed to solve and fill. Attempts to really, sincerely believe that certain innovative, maybe even AI-powered services may work at scale better than what we used before can be equally disheartening. Dating apps, anyone?

Apart from that, what's hard to see through all those smokescreens is that there would be nothing bad, even if we really weren't smart enough to do more science, or science really had nothing new and useful to offer anymore.The full paragraph (quoted by the Sorcerer too!) of that 2010 study says:

"Our investments in science have been producing diminishing returns for some time. Within a few decades, our results suggest, we will have to find new ways to generate material prosperity and solve societal problems."

Exactly! Even if that were true, in every field of technology, so what? Really, what would the actual problem be? We reached the end of development of scissors, cups and everything other "oldest mostly-unchanged tools that we still use" centuries ago, but so what? Did those things stop to be useful?

We just have to replace "find new ways" with "go back to, or rediscover" certain ways.

The only way in which the end of science and technology would really be a problem is if they really were the only "way to generate material prosperity and solve societal problems", instead of "the way most fashionable today". But first, that is obviously false: human beings and humanity have always been much more than science and technology. If anything, the problem has always been to see science as THE first or sufficient tool to generate prosperity etc etc.., instead of stuff like solidarity, common sense and real politics in general.

Second, there is still so much to with the science and technology we already have to make us accept any "end" or more exactly temporary stop of science for a few decades. We already have all the science we need to solve REAL problems we actually have now. We already have all the "science" we need to, if not to solve, at least make much more manageable, problems like, in random order:

• city traffic, with public transit and reserved lanes for bikes and, of course, scooters done right

• AI religion (not AI!), with common sense

• costs and slowness of nuclear power, with an SMR Liberty Program

• Impulse shopping, Amazon's monopoly and carbon footprint with making of Amazon a SLOW standard, and Singapore-style shipping

• the end of work, with seeing things in the right order

• almost all the problems created by social media and smartphones, with understanding that they are not the same thing, that RSS is good and so would be really personal clouds

• obesity and some mental health issues, with the good old "Eat Food. Not Much. Mostly vegetables" rule, combined with slowness, at alll levels

• PLEASE, do add other big problems and their solutions with appropriate technology in the comments!

Demand policies like those that from your political representatives, and 99.99999% of any sadness you may feel because science is ending will go away.

Usual final call: the more direct support I get, the more I can investigate and share content like this with everybody who could and should know it. If you can’t or don’t want to do it with a paid subscription, you may fund me directly via via PayPal (mfioretti@nexaima.net), LiberaPay, or in any of the other ways listed here.