Prometheus Bound SCIENCE IN DYNAMIC STEADY STATE

A searching critique of the structural changes currently taking place in the scientific community, showing that managerial considerations now threaten to crowd out the creative element in science.

After expanding steadily for centuries, science is reaching its limits to growth. We can no longer afford the ever increasing cost of exploring ever wider research opportunities. In the competition for resources, science is becoming much more tightly organised. 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', etc. 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 trenchant 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.

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.

This book is a cool but searching critique of science today. It analyses, for the first time, the profound changes that are taking place in the whole scientific enterprise, throughout the world. The author shows, in simple words, how the competition for bounded resources is forcing science to become much more tightly organised.