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Diminishin returns of modern science in terms of fundamental discoveries

posted 8 years ago by cyberman0192
4 replies | jump to latest

Much historically recent progress that followed pretty quickly from the basic science enabling it.

Electricity -> telegraph, electric power, radio, etc.
Themodynamics -> better steam engines, IC engines, gas turbines.
Periodic table and 19th century chemistry -> plastics and chemical engineering.
Penicillin -> antibiotics industry.

1850-1920 saw lots of figuring how the world works, and we put that to work in short order. There’s been a lot less fundamental discovery since then.

Do you agree with that final assertion?

[–] Grayovac 8 years ago

Sorry, but your entire premise is false. I shall provide irrevocable proof of that on Tuesday. Stay tuned...

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On IMDb, everyone knows you're leaving on Feb 20th.

[–] Valerian (-273) 3 years ago

Still waiting for the proof.

[–] McQualude (4231) 5 years ago

No, it's just that progress is becoming more difficult for the layman to understand. The average person's understanding of science and the world is about 100 years behind. Most of it can't be dumbed down enough for a high school or college non-science education to understand. Like Feynman trying to explain electromagnetism to a journalist -- paraphrased, 'I can't explain it in terms you understand because I don't understand it in terms you understand.'

[–] AmeriGirl26 (14379) 5 years ago

Actually, there are still a lot of scientific discoveries being made, even today. You just need to know where to hear about it. Just because the lamestream news or movies don't talk about it, doesn't mean it's not happening.

Examples would include that silent "technology" explosion that took place during the year 2000, but we didn't see the results until the following years, when cell phones and computers suddenly became more advanced.

Or the discovery of that hidden organ in human skin.

Then there's all the discoveries made about tornadoes in just the past 5 years.

Let's not forget 100s of new animal species discovered just last year.

Heck, we didn't even know about plate tectonics until the 60s!

I think maybe you need to re-assess scientific discoveries that happened after 1920. You would be amazed what we've found out in the past 80 years, and what new inventions resulted from that.