Analytical stagnation

Overemphasis on analysis

Nature

The current overemphasis on analysis without the necessary counter-balance of synthesis or interpretation leads to a form of analytical stagnation, or an analyzed chaos without meaning. Science has provided more data than can be intelligently interpreted. The mere quantity of facts necessitates a specialized form of analysis without the possibility of seeing the facts within their full context. Without such a perspective, future generations are ill-equipped for the ever-increasing complexity of human experience.

Claim

Science is getting out of hand. The most remarkable feature of the current scientific explosion is its almost total lack of direction and organization. The power wielded by scientists is increasing at a terrifying rate, but the growth of any adequate scientific ethos and philosophy is almost imperceptible.

Counter-claim

Anti-science is fashionable among those with a classics or humanities education and those with no education at all. The essence of the scientific revolution of the past four centuries has been the evolution of analysis. The achievements of analysis in microbiology, cosmology, particle and high-energy physics, applied mathematics and logic (particularly in information and communication theory which lies behind the artificial intelligence of the computer), point not to stagnation but rather the possibility of convergence towards a new science of first principles that explains the origin and meaning of life and consciousness.