With the arrival of the Apple iPad last week, it was clear that the world is in the middle of a technology boom and it was even clearer that we all love it. Whilst some couldn’t help comment on certain missing features (the web cam, the USB connector and so on), nobody was condemning the entire idea of portable communication devices to the dustbin – quite the contrary, I can almost guarantee that there will be a line around the block on the day Apple release this latest product for sale. We just love technology.
Technology such as the iPad is built on the back of fundamental scientific research in many fields, from theoretical physics to materials science – even particle mechanics and other esoteric sciences creep into the picture. Years of research in universities, private laboratories and government agencies, leading to literally thousands of scientific papers have led the way to the products that we speculate about, eagerly await announcements of and then buy in the million.
But somewhere along the line we seem to have lost our appetite for science, in fact some even look on it with disdain. In developed countries, far less students today engage in science or science based subjects in schools and universities than twenty or thirty years ago. Yet those same people crave the products that a science based education system can ultimately deliver.
On a newscast I was watching last week an excited correspondent was telling us about the iPad. Not two minutes later the same person was salivating at the prospect of “the whole global warming story collapsing like a house of cards because of the bogus science”. But the approach to this science is no different to that behind the iPad, the scientists no less diligent, the papers they produce no less reviewed, yet because we either don’t want to know about or can’t accept the findings we choose to attack the science and the scientists – not with any intellectual rigour or scientific discipline, but with slander and sometimes even abuse. I doubt the correspondent had even the remotest idea as to the years of research in atmospheric chemistry that have led to the concern about the rising levels of carbon dioxide or the detailed measurements done in laboratories for the past century on the behaviour of carbon dioxide and infra red radiation. But he loved the iPad!!
Even if we can get past the atmospheric chemistry that supports the thinking on climate change, we then run into difficulty with the solution set. Many people don’t like nuclear, yet have little or even no knowledge of the supporting science. Geological sequestration of carbon dioxide is struggling to gain public acceptance, despite the many studies done and even field tests that support its inherent safety. We simply choose not to believe that it can be right.
But we still love the iPad!
Actually, David, there’s a great deal of vitriol online about the iPad, mostly from people who seem to have left their imaginations running in neutral. In “The Failure of Empathy” geeks are taken to task for assuming the status quo is preferable: http://tinyurl.com/yg4kl65
Several developers have weighed in with pro-iPad essays, notably http://speirs.org http://joehewitt.com and http://stevenf.tumblr.com.
Touch-based interfaces may be coming sooner than we think – this plastic film can turn any surface into a touchscreen: http://j.mp/b8v9m1
I’m looking forward to the user experience innovations enabled by the iPad and its ilk, if these guidelines are any inkling: http://tinyurl.com/yk5aw23
Speaking of inkling, see http://www.inkling.com
As you pointed out, all of this required years or even decades of research in the natural and social sciences, now bearing fruit.
Perhaps the iPad and other devices like it will help foster a resurgent curiosity for science among the youth, as they interact with datasets and simulations in more direct and accessible ways. Anything that promotes scientific literacy among the general populace will help us move civilization forward. The 3D brain model at http://www.g2conline.org is already available as an iPhone app (despite its lack of support for Flash) – I wish I had something like it when I was in school!
The iPad seems to move us a bit closer to Alan Kay’s late-60s Dynabook concept – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynabook
To this (former) Shell engineer and (former) educator, this is a good thing.
Great thought piece David.
I have often wondered the same myself – just wasn’t able to put it together so eligently!
Perhaps we scientists have not been strong enough in putting forward our positions but rather let the razzle dazzle spin doctors (nay sayers) take the centre stage when the real contributors are out doing the work…..of science.
Keep up the blogging
Turlough
http://exchange.telstra.com.au/author/turlough-guerin
David,
Brilliant post about what is science and the contradictory position of the public in front of it.
Science shows us that we have to drastically cut our CO2 emissions, and we prefer to look everywhere else, on the new ipad ie.
About carbon capture and storage, the science is far less obvious as you present it. This technology is not in operation now and may bring some important desagrements:
*on the financial cost of the CO2 ton burried
*on the fiability of the underground storage in a large time scale.
Thanks for the comment – in fact the technology is in operation, albeit not in many locations. But it is working and has been doing so in Norway for about ten years.