The Development of Science Challenges Human’s Research Capacity Wang Yuanfeng Beijing Jiaotong University, Beijing 100044, P.R. China The scientific knowledge has been increasing unprecedentedly during the past century, especially after the Second World War, due to the drive of following three elements: the interdisciplinary study, the advance of research methods and tools as well as the intertwining of science and technology (1). However, the rapid increase of scientific knowledge does not make scientific problems decrease accordingly, on the contrary, the issues presenting to human being are augmenting. From the point of view of the epistemology, human beings’ abilities of finding out and identifying problems are improved with knowledge growth. In addition, modern science is no longer to be the traditional natural science, although the questions, such as “What is the universe made of” and “What is the biological basis of consciousness” etc.(2), are still the essential problems of scientific research, but subjects of scientific research are mostly created by human being themselves. The human being’s ability to create problems is far stronger than that of solving problems. This prominent unsymmetry with science’s “endless frontier”(3) results in that it is not capable for human being to solve all the scientific problems. However, although scientists on the globe does not expect to carry out the impossible mission, the growth of the scientific knowledge presents a great challenge to scientific research because human’s research capacity does not keep pace with the development of science. The factors influencing capacities of scientific research are capital invested in scientific studies, which is generally denoted by RD investment, the quantity and quality of the scientific researchers, and scientific research infrastructure. Among the three factors, the first is most essential, it influences not only scientific research directly but also the quantity of scientific researchers as well as the scientific research infrastructure. At present, the global RD investment is of about $ 100 billion, accounting for about 2 % of world GDP (4,5,6). In the RD investment, only about one sixth was spent on basic research in developed countries such as the United States and some European countries, and developing countries’ corresponding expenditures were much less. The investment devoted into scientific research was too little as compared with the world expenditures on weapons and narcotics. Moreover, global investments in RD grew at a rate of less than 1% between 2001 and 2002, compared to 4.6% annually between 1994 and 2001(4). Government RD funds have been especially important to the academic sector, which is the source of much of the basic research, but as warned by President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) of the United States in the year of 2002: RD investment from the federal government has fallen to its lowest point as a percentage of the GDP in over 25 years(7,8). PCAST also worried about strong support of RD by private sector, which accounted for around 64 percent of U.S. RD investment(4), “this source of funding cycles with business patterns and focuses on short term results emphasizing development of existing technology rather than establishing new frontiers”(7). Most essentially, western countries, which occupy most proportion of global RD investment, have lost the will to fund basic science research (9), large number of scientific research proposals can not obtain support. In 2004, National Science Foundation (NSF) of the Unite States funded only 23.6 percent of proposals that has decreased to the lowest point in the past 10 years(10). Scientists in all over the world are not satisfied with the insufficient funds, especially those who are engaged in basic research. Even French scientists took to the streets to protest their government’s policies of the basic research investment (9). The work of scientists especially those in the field of basic research, is quite demanding, but in the society of market economy, scientists’ incomes just match that of the middle class. As a result, their career becomes less attractive, main developed countries are facing the declining interest in scientific jobs among their young people (5). A dditionally, with the restricting of scientific research investment, it will be difficult to supply sufficient researchers for scientific investigation, and the shortage of the researchers in some disciplines gets more serious. Whether the quantity of science and technical staff is enough is still under discussion, but main developed countries are all challenged by a period of growing retirements among their researchers(5). The case is notable in the Unite States: more than 30 percent of its university faculty are 55 years of age or older, and the total of individuals below age 45 has fallen to 36 percent(5). Meanwhile, modern scientific research has challenged the quality of scientific researchers. Mostly, modern scientific problems have the characters of complexity, non-linearity, interdisciplinarity, it highlights the requirement to scientists. Scientists should be qualified with various knowledge accumulation, abundant working experience, spirit of team work and skillful utilization of advanced research methods and facilities to do cutting-edge research. Whether the whole groups of scientific researchers can adapt to science development or not has not been reported, the claims of the development of science to scientists’ qualities should be studied. Advanced and effective research infrastructure is critical to the development of science. Modern infrastructure make researchers more productive and be able to do more complex and different tasks than they could in the past. The Unite States possesses the most advanced research conditions, but during the past decade, according to the diverse studies and reports(11) of NSF, National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), National Institute of Health (NIH), National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), there is a growing gap between the academic research infrastructure that is needed and the infrastructure provided. Scientific research infrastructure in the Unite States can not satisfy the requirement of science development. Nowadays, constructing and maintaining infrastructure of scientific research is very costly, however, NSTC reported that over the last ten years, the funding for academic research infrastructure has not caught up with rapidly changing technology, expanding research opportunities, and increasing numbers of users(11,12). The current 22 percent of the budget of NSF used in research infrastructures is too low(11). Many large research infrastructure can not be accomplished by one country because of their complexity and requirements in investment, technology and human resources. At present, a number of large research infrastructure has been constructed through international collaborations and partnerships (11). However, in the view of the scientific problems that human being has to face jointly, the work just starts. Besides those mentioned above, institutions, cultures, people’s education and interests on science are other factors affecting human's research capacity. Except the development of science raises new requests for human’s research capacity, human being must upgrade their scientific research capacity to meet the demand of the survival and development of human's society. References 1. Nelson R, National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis, New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 2. 125 Questions, what don’t we know, Science, Vol. 309, July 2005 http://www.sciencemag.org/sciext/125th/ 3. Bush V., Science—The Endless Frontier, A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research, July 1945 4. OECD Science, Technology and Industry Outlook 2004 (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development,2004) http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/0/60/33998255.pdf 5.Science Engineering Indicators – 2010(The National Science Board, 2010) http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind10/ 6.Human Development Report 2010 (United Nations Development ， 2010) http://hdr.undp.org/reports/global/2010/ 7.Assessing the U.S. RD Investment (President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, October 16, 2002 ) http://www.ostp.gov/PCAST/pcast2002rpt.html 8.Elisa Eiseman, Kei Koizumi and Donna Fossum, Federal Investment in RD, (RAND, September 2002) http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1639.0/MR1639.0.pdf 9.William Brody ， The west has lost the will to fund basic research ， (The Financial Times ， August 18, 2005) 10.National Science Foundation, Introduction and NSF Overview, Regional Grants Conference, (April 4-5, 2005) http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/docs/introoakland.pdf 11. Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the 21st Century , (The National Science Board, 2003) http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/2002/nsb02190/nsb02190.pdf 12. A Review of Reports on Selected Large Federal Science Facilities (Rand, 2003) http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1728/MR1728.ch1.pdf
科学发展挑战人类的科研能力 王元丰 北京交通大学教授 20 世纪以来，特别是二战以后， 科学知识以前所未有的速度增长。科学知识迅猛增长主要由于下面三个方面因素的推动： 1 、学科交叉融合。 跨学科研究、学科交叉研究不断地开拓出新的研究领域 ，促使新兴学科不断涌现。此外，传统学科 不断地分化出新的分支，孕育出许多新学科生长点。 2 、研究方法与手段的进步。先进现代实验与计算方法、技术和手段的运用，使科学研究能力大大增强，并且还原论与整体论相结合，微观研究与宏观研究方法相结合，不断创新科学研究的方法论，使人类不断突破传统研究的极限。 3 、科学和技术的融合（ 1 ）。科学与技术之间的相互融合、相互作用和相互转化，逐步形成一体的科学技术体系，极大地拓展了科学的研究范畴，促进了科学知识的增长。 但是，科学知识的快速增长没有使需要研究的问题减少，相反，摆在人类面前的问题也同样是急剧增长。从认识论讲，人类认识和发现问题的能力是随着其拥有知识的增加而增长的。另一方面，现代科学已不再是传统意义上的自然科学，尽管像组成物质的基本粒子、宇宙与生命的起源等问题仍是科学研究的根本问题，但是科学现在研究对象绝大部分是人类所创造出来的问题。 人类创造问题的能力远大于其解决问题的能力，人类没有能力解决所有的科学问题，科学研究的疆域是没有边界的 （ 2 ） 。但是，因为人类的科学研究能力不足，难以跟上科学发展的要求，科学问题的增长给科学研究带来很大的挑战。这一问题需要引起深思，由此衍生的问题值得深入研究。 影响科学研究能力的因素主要是科研资金投入量，科研人员的数量与素质以及科研基础设施状况。在这其中科研资金的投入量是最至关重要的，它不但决定科学研究地开展程度，而且决定科研人员数量，决定着科研基础设施的先进程度。 当前 ，全世界 RD 的投入在10 000 亿美元左右，占当年全世界 GDP 的 2% 左右（ 3,4,5 ）。在 RD 的投入中，像美国及欧洲发达国家也仅有六分之一左右用在基础研究上，发展中国家则更低，全世界在科学研究上的投入远低于花在武器或毒品上的费用。而且，值得关注的是，在 RD 的投入中商业机构的投入已占有主导地位，而商业机构的投入主要目的并不是基础科学研究（ 6,7 ）；更值得关注的是占科研投入绝大比例的西方国家正失去资助基础研究的兴趣（ 8 ）。大量的科研项目申请得不到资助， 2004 年美国国家自然基金委员会项目申请的资助率仅为 23.6% ，降到十年来的最低点（ 9 ）。全世界的科学家都感到科学研究的经费不足，尤其是从事基础研究的科学家。法国科学家甚至为此走上街头，抗议政府基础研究经费的投入政策（ 10 ）。 在市场经济社会，科学家尤其是从事基础研究的科学家，工作要求高、经济收入水平仅在中产阶级行列，其职业并不特别具有吸引力，世界主要发达国家都面临着青年人对科技工作兴趣下降的问题（ 4 ）。另外，加之科研经费投入有限的限制，科研人员的数量不可能十分充足，在一些学科上，科研人员的数量不足的问题更加突出。虽然是否存在科技人员短缺问题还有不同的意见，但主要发达国家都面临着一段时间内科技人员退休高峰的挑战，美国这方面的问题更加显著： 30% 的大学教师年龄超过 55 岁， 45 岁以下的教师仅占 36% （ 4 ）。与此同时，现代科学研究对科研人员素质也提出了挑战。很多现代科学问题具有复杂性、非线性、多学科交叉性、技术依赖性等特点，对科学家及科学家团队提出很高的要求。科学家及科学家团队要具有多方面的知识积累，要掌握先进的研究手段，要有丰富的工作经验，要能够协同工作等等，才具备从事科学研究工作的能力。科研工作者在整体上能否适应科学发展的要求，这方面尚未见到专门的研究。而作者认为科学发展对科研工作者素质的挑战比数量的挑战更大。 随着科学的发展，对科研基础设施不断提出更高的要求。美国拥有世界上最先进的科研条件，但在过去十年，美国自然科学基金委员会 (NSF) 、国家科技委员会（ NSTC ）、国家健康研究院 (NIH) ，国家航空航天局 (NASA) 的调查研究显示：科研基础设施的需求与供给之间的差距持续扩大（ 11 ），美国的科研基础设施未能满足科研发展的需要。在当代，建造和维护科学研究基础设施需要投入当量的资金。美国国家科学委员会（ NSTC ）报告认为：在过去 10 年内，美国对学术研究基础设施的投资没有跟上飞速改变的技术、飞速增加的研究机会以及飞速增长的用户数。国家科学基金用于基础设施的预算太少，仅占 22% （ 11,12 ）。很多大型科研基础设施由于其本身的复杂性以及资金投入、技术、人员、管理等方面的要求，远非一个国家所能完成，目前一些大型科研基础设施通过国际合作进行建设（ 11 ）。然而，从人类共同面对重大科学问题的角度，这方面的工作仅仅是刚刚开始。 影响人类的科研能力还有制度、文化等方面的因素。另外，科学技术的教育，大众的科学爱好等，也对人类的科研能力有影响。对这些本文不做讨论。 除了科学发展对人类的科研能力提出新的要求，人类社会生存、发展，还有很多重大科学问题，如灾害、疾病、环境污染、资源紧张等等问题（ 13 ），迫切需要人类提高科学研究能力，予以解决。 参考文献 1. R Nelson, National Innovation Systems: A Comparative Analysis , New York: Oxford University Press, 1993 2. Vannevar Bush, Science—The Endless Frontier, A Report to the President on a Program for Postwar Scientific Research, July 1945 3. Science and Technology Statistical Compendium 2004 （ Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development,2004 ） 4. Science Engineering Indicators – 2010( The National Science Board, 2010) 5. Human Development Report 2010 (United Nations Development ， 2010) 6. Assessing the U.S. RD Investment ( President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, October 16, 2002 ) 7. Elisa Eiseman, Kei Koizumi and Donna Fossum, Federal Investment in RD (RAND, September 2002) 8. William Brody ， The west has lost the will to fund basic research ， (The Financial Times ， August 18 2005) 9. National Science Foundation, Introduction and NSF Overview, Regional Grants Conference, (April 4-5 2005) 10. “ French scientists fear for basic resea rch, despite government assurances ”， http://dbs.cordis.lu/cgi-bin/srchidadb?CALLER=NHP_EN_NEWSACTION=DSESSION=RCN=EN_RCN_ID:24203 11. Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the 21 st Century ( The National Science Board, 2003) http://www.nsf.gov/nsb/documents/2002/nsb02190/nsb02190.pdf 12 . A Review of Reports on Selected Large Federal Science Facilities (Rand, 2003) http://www.rand.org/publications/MR/MR1728/MR1728.ch1.pdf 13 . 125 Questions, what don’t we know, Science, Vol 3091,July 2005 Editor-in-Chief D. Kennedy and News Editor Colin. Norman
标签: 科学发展
