Rethinking Science

Dear Scientists.  I am not one of you.  Or rather, [and this is part of the problem], you will, mistakenly, not think of me as such.  But I have some advice about how you need to go about rethinking what you do.  That you should is self-evident.  Take a look out any window and you will see that your failures are piling up.  No flying cars.  Teleporting.  Free power.  Or perpetual motion.  And many things deteriorate and break down.  Sometimes, I see mud.   Not surprisingly, there is discontent everywhere.  People are dying, even in this year of 2016.  A few weeks ago, my kids were in bed with a cold.  No-one predicted this, and there was no solution in sight.  All this, yet your disciplines carry on.  I say ‘disciplines’ advisedly, since from my perch I can see you scurrying about in your sub-specialisms, without my sense of the big picture.  Sometimes I browse the internet for Science things and I see pages full of equations.  I conclude from this that you are out of touch with reality, and your failings to improve it.  I have my own theory of the universe, gleaned from introspection, and many years living in it.  Soon you can purchase the book length version, or attend one of my lectures.  If any of you are open-minded enough to invite me to talk to you, I will happily appear in your seminar programs.  Of course my suggestions will not look like a conventional academic paper, because, my friends, that you would hope for this is exactly the problem!  If you are not so open-minded, and I strongly suspect you are not, that will again prove that you have a problem.  Perhaps if you spent less time deriving equations and more time studying the history of scientific thought and the sociology of science, we would not be in this predicament, and this earth would now be a land of milk and honey, so to speak.  The other day, I took my large motorbike to be fixed, and I met a man who wielded spanners and chains and oil and, lo, problem solved, and I thought ‘If only we could make a scientist see this!’  There is a painting called ‘The Scream’ [obviously an art history reference will be lost on you, but persevere, it will be good for you] and this is a good metaphor for what you will be faced with if you do not heed this advice to start holding some conferences soon to Rethink Science.