http://www.project-syndicate.org/series/science_and_society <p><em>Will cloning produce armies of Einsteins or reduce mankind to Aldous Huxley’s proletarian slaves? Are genetically modified seeds and animals a source of future plenty, or Frankenstein foods poised to haunt us? Will technology and the Internet make totalitarianism a fading memory or provide future tyrants with the means to end our privacy? Does science promise more equality or will it widen the gap between the world’s haves and have-nots? Where, indeed, is today’s scientific revolution heading?</em></p> en 2012-02-10T05:55:20+01:00 webmaster@project-syndicate.org webmaster@project-syndicate.org 1994-01-01T00:00:00+01:00 4 hourly http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jecohen1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/jecohen1/English>SCIENCE: A Seismic Crime</a> The devastating earthquake that hit L'Aquila, Italy in 2009 has sparked a court trial and lingering questions about scientific experts' failures to communicate risk to the public. Scientists around the world have rightly spoken out against the trial in Italy, but will we be ready when the next big earthquake strikes? Joel E. Cohen 2012-02-02T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/kaiser1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/kaiser1/English>SCIENCE: Hunting the Higgs</a> For 50 years, scientists have searched for a hypothetical particle reminiscent of a bizarre fairytale, but that stands at the center of the “Standard Model” of particle physics. Now, following research conducted at CERN, the sprawling particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, the hunt may soon be over. David Kaiser 2012-01-05T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swinney1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/swinney1/English>SCIENCE: Old Methods for New Drugs</a> Despite high expectations for the "molecular revolution" in biopharmaceutical research, productivity in developing new drugs has been frustratingly low. As a result, a broad variety of diseases, in both the developed and the developing worlds, are not being treated effectively. David C. Swinney 2011-12-02T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/asteiner14/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/asteiner14/English>SCIENCE: Protecting Nature’s Nomads</a> Human interference with the environment has had a devastating impact on many migratory species. While nature should never be prized merely for its economic value, in a world of competing demands and limited resources, economic considerations can help tip decisions in favor of conservation. Achim Steiner 2011-11-08T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dickenson6/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/dickenson6/English>SCIENCE: Mengele in America</a> In 1946, American lawyers prosecuted Nazi doctors at Nuremberg for crimes against humanity – so-called “research” carried out on concentration camp prisoners. But, on the other side of the Atlantic, in Guatemala, the US Public Health Service was deliberately infecting prisoners and mental patients with syphilis in another “experiment.” Donna Dickenson 2011-11-02T00:00:00+01:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fernandez1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/fernandez1/English>SCIENCE: Human Evolution: No Easy Fix</a> Humanity is undeniably complex, and proud of it – no case, we believe, needs to be made for our biological superiority. But we may be doomed as a species precisely because of the way in which our complexity arose. Ariel Fernandez 2011-10-03T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/deutsch2/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/deutsch2/English>SCIENCE: Einstein the Realist</a> With the discovery that the universe’s expansion is accelerating, not slowing, as was previously thought, newspaper headlines are proclaiming that Albert Einstein was right, after all. But Einstein's most important legacy is his belief that a physical world, existing in reality, accounts for all of our experience. David Deutsch 2011-09-02T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rothman1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/rothman1/English>SCIENCE: Physics Confidential</a> Physicists are justly proud of the many ways that their achievements have benefited humankind. But building a light bulb or a telephone doesn’t mean that you understand its basic principles (Thomas Edison and Alexander Bell certainly didn’t), and many physicists seem to have forgotten that distinction. Tony Rothman 2011-08-03T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mnorman1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mnorman1/English>SCIENCE: A Hundred Years of Superconductivity</a> This spring marked the 100th anniversary of the discovery of superconductivity – the ability of materials to carry electrical current, often for many years, without measurable decay. Key technologies, like magnetic resonance imaging, already depend on it, but major theoretical challenges remain before the revolution can resume. Michael Norman 2011-07-08T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stirling1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/stirling1/English>SCIENCE: Risky Advice</a> Too often, expert opinion is thought most useful to policymakers when presented as a single “definitive” interpretation. As a result, experts typically understate uncertainty, and, to the extent that they acknowledge it, they tend to reduce unknowns to measurable “risk.” Andy Stirling, Alister Scott 2011-06-02T00:00:00+02:00 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tyner1/English <a href=http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/tyner1/English>SCIENCE: The Ethanol Hunger</a> America’s biofuels policies inevitably lead to larger price responses to supply shocks in the short run. In the long run, however, the higher prices that result could become an engine of economic development in the world’s poor rural regions. Wallace E. Tyner 2011-05-03T00:00:00+02:00