A Short History of 20^th Century Science

In the last century we saw huge progress in physics and biology, especially genetics. We also saw more than tens of trillions (estimate) invested in research in physics, especially quantum physics, by government and genetics, to a lesser degree, by private sector. And yet, relevance of research results dropped exponentially for every invested dollar. There is now growing consensus that detecting God particle (so called “theory of everything”) will mean nothing to 99.9% of scientists. There is also growing scepticism that it will be detected at all. So, what went wrong?

Physics became the most influential scientific discipline powered by taxpayers money. And names in physics became the most influential people among scientists. (At some places they are treated as deities.) In chase for building blocks of our universe, physicists lost sight of many other issues. How to derive properties of salt from properties of sodium and chlorine was simply forgotten. Although there was some success in predicting properties chemistry/materials discipline still resembles alchemy in its try and fail method. And implications are simply stupendous. If we cannot derive properties of salt from interplays between sodium and chlorine atoms, how we can infer properties of wavicles from their interplays? And this is precisely what quantum physicists are doing

Physicists are now in, almost paranoid, damage control with often pretty clumsy attempts to present the relevance of physics in other scientific disciplines. Roger Penrose, Abner Shimony, Nancy Cartwright and Stephen Hawking gave prime example of such sentiment. Their book “The Large, the Small and the Human Mind” is quite clumsy attempt to offer non-locality as solution to psychology and neurology re consciousness. And although their proposal has been widely refuted by experimental results, they are still standing behind their book blinding generations of enthusiasts. I’m afraid that this can evolve into church/inquisition mentality that will stifle physics. And radically new ideas are badly needed, even if they might seem heretical.

Biologists have also narrowed their minds on genome. For a long time, genome was at centre of everything and huge efforts were invested in mapping genome of various species. Genome seemed to be answer for everything in biology and we were storing genomes of endangered species, for example. With a little thought about importance of their environment and experiences... It seems likely now that we wasted a lot of money in attempts to save endangered species. Without their environment they will be gone, genes or no genes.

Fortunately, biologists did not corner themselves as physicists did. The research has shown that the same gene can be variously expressed (epigenome) depending on individual experiences during lifetime. There is no direct evidence yet, but consensus is growing that there is a feedback loop that will allow for impact of epigenome on genes themselves. The task is now to detect such changes in genome, during lifetime of an individual or across generations. (During conception epigenome of parents also plays a role, while during pregnancy mother’s epigenome constantly impacts foetus.)

While physicists and geneticists were running towards dead ends with theories very few could comprehend, other disciplines also lost touch with each other. The sad state of science is well reflected in speak about sciences rather than scientific disciplines. And putting them back together will be tremendous task. The most of the scientists simply do not have a clue where to start. But it has to be done, otherwise we will have sciences like runaway trains. If a theory in one discipline does not make sense in others, it must be simply rejected as unscientific. Only unrelenting demands for theories that make sense in all disciplines can apply breaks and prevent disciplines from crashing into oblivion.

Kind regards,

Damir

PS: Fell free to forward this message.