New ways to pay for research could boost scientific progress
A new field hopes to apply science’s methods to science itself
How might science be done on an alien planet? Since the laws of nature are the same everywhere, the aliens would make the same discoveries as humans have—that matter is made of atoms, say, or that life develops via evolution. But while the results might be the same, aliens would be unlikely to have come up with the same methods for arriving at them. It would be remarkable if the little green men had invented universities, funding committees, a tenure system and all the other accoutrements of modern academic life.
This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Putting science under the microscope”
From the November 18th 2023 edition
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