This editorial in The Scientist by Richard Gallagher attempts to grapple with the implications of globalization for science. A report from the InterAcademy Council, Inventing a Better Future: A Strategy for Building World Capacities in Science and Technology is discussed.

... the report sums up the current situation thus: "Business-as-usual will leave an ever-growing gap between 'have' and 'have-not' nations .... The current disparity is likely to grow even wider as the industrialized nations continue to master the tools of science and invention, vastly outspend the developing nations in research and development (R&D), and even capture some of the developing nations' most precious human resources for their own use."

While I wholeheartedly support the aims of the report, my pessimistic view is that "business as usual" will prevail. Here's why: Scientists themselves often lack a vision of global community. The recent advances from South Korea in human cloning,4 for example, far from drawing congratulations, attracted sullen comments,5 such as from biotechnologist Michael West, that "The work should have been done in the US, it should have been published by researchers in the US first," and from Bernard Siegel, executive director of the Genetics Policy Institute, that the "ramifications could be serious for the US scientific community."5

In addition, governments view science, at best, as a cutthroat business venture and, at worst, as a political pawn. The European Union is plotting to "... become the most competitive, knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010," with the funding of basic research and scholarship being recognized and reinforced by the EU Competitiveness Council.

Gallagher makes an interesting point. Scientists and governments fail to grasp the concept of a global community. Individual scientists surely do so, but the institutional frameworks within which they function do not. They are still national and provincial.

The InterAcademy Council concludes the executive summary with these remarks:

Our recommendations represent universal needs for inventing a better future. Stronger S&T capacity in the developing nations is not a luxury but an absolute necessity if these nations are to participate as full partners in the world’s fast-forming, knowledge-based economy. Because S&T capacity building is likely to be demanding and far-reaching, and necessarily tailored to each country’s particular situation, it will require the involvement of all pertinent actors in its implementation. There is much that national governments can do and much that other groups of social actors – such as local govern-ments, nongovernmental organizations, the private sector, international and regional organizations, the S&T communities, philanthropies, and the media – can do to change the course of events so that the benefits of science and technology flow more equitably to all members of the human family.

But Gallagher notes a more recent trend.

... rays of light for global science are emerging. One comes courtesy of the arch-prince of globalization, Bill Gates. While the net global impact of the bullying Microsoft Corporation can be debated, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributes billions to the world's neediest people. Most recently, one grant doubled funds for the development of new tuberculosis vaccines, joining large programs on HIV/AIDS and tropical diseases...

The InterAcademies and Bill Gates of this world are on the right track. Let's see how long it takes the rest of us.

I think they are a bit behind recent developments. Not only are private entities such as the Gates Foundation having an impact, the rate of publication of scientific papers in the developing world has risen dramatically according to the Institute for Scientific Information (ISI), the organization responsible for the allocation of journal impact factors.

Gates is the most visible and controversial of new foundations but there are others. The generation of newly rich global entrepreneurs is just now reaching the age when their attentions turn from creating their industries and fortunes to later life concerns. There is an expectation that others will do as Gates has recently begun to do and use their great wealth to reshape the world. This may be a positive turn since this young generation of philanthropists see the world very differently than their parents and grandparents did. They are completely globalized and have no trouble understanding that all depend on all. The old map lines that divide nations and peoples have no intrinsic value to them, they are just the sometimes inconvenient turf markers of the old order.

This digital generation may be having even deeper impacts on world views. In a recent Wired article David F. Channell, professor of the history of science and technology at the University of Texas at Dallas, speculates about the growing propensity for seeing the natural world as computational.

If both the physical universe and the biological world are best understood in terms of information and computation - concepts that arise from the artificial world of technology - it no longer makes sense to think that technology results from an application of science. Indeed, if computation is the basis of all nature, then science is just applied technology.

As science is in this view applied technology perhaps governance is applied industry. Perhaps the InterAcademy Council view is inverted. Rather than government led spending on science research what is needed is industry led spending on technology. Science and government - applications of technology and industry - would develop as a result.

This makes a lot of practical sense as well since the needs of developing countries are immediate and industry provides rapid benefits. That it may also be the proper route to development in science and governance is contrary to the ancient aristocratic disdain for commerce, but this can be seen as further support for the ideas rather than criticism. The erosion of the ancient alliance of the military, government and religion to dominate society and control populations for the benefit of an elite has been under assault by the merchant and working classes for centuries. Technology, and its application in science, has slowly wriggled out from under the thumb of religion. Commerce has also slowly wriggled out from under the thumb of government. The direct use of force by the military - and its implied use through regulation, quotas and tariffs - seems increasingly uncouth as the world matures and becomes more interconnected.

From this perspective the recent kerfuffle about politicized science funding seems doubly anachronistic. It isn't science that should be our primary concern it is technology, and governments shouldn't be heavily involved in funding anyway. It is industry and technology that are primary in a maturing, globalizing world. The old dream, never quite realized, of people governing themselves, pursuing their peaceful interests, farting around as primates are wont to do, and in the process creating abundance and fascinating invention seems nearer than ever. The petulant screeching of the old guard as it loses its perquisites to the uncouth merchants and workers newly strengthened by their sheer numbers and recently increased interconnection isn't alarming, isn't important, isn't even mildly interesting except perhaps to historians.

» Move Along... from Crumb Trail
...There's nothing to see here, but there is at Notional Slurry. B.T. has been on a roll lately - start at the top and just keep reading, there's a continuity of sorts - and he's threatening to roll even faster: I’m gearing up to give a whole bunch of......[read more]
Tracked: March 13, 2004 02:39 PM