Challenges More Difficult for Science than Going to Mars

Difficulties greater than exploring the origins of the Universe or of Life on Earth

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Introduction

Society worldwide is faced with a multiplicity of challenges. It is therefore extraordinary to observe the resources deployed to reaching the Moon, Mars and other planets. And why not other solar systems? A particular focus is given to locating "habitable" Earth-like planets elsewhere -- and the possibility of extraterrestrial life. More extraordinary is the focus on the origins of the Universe, billions of years ago.

The manned mision to Mars is variously framed as being complex and challenging (Richard Cook, Mars Science Lab: the challenge of complexity, NASA Ask Magazine, August 2012; NASA design challenge to simulate human exploration of Mars, Phys.Org, 2 December 2013; Tommaso Rivellini, The Challenges of Landing on Mars, National Academy of Engineering, 2004; Donald Rapp, The Challenges of Manned Mars Exploration, The Space Reiew, 17 April 2006) .

Science is however skilled in avoiding deployment of its creativity -- or justifying allocation of resources -- to challenges that are framed as "too complex" or simply "uninteresting". One relevant review is offered by Jason Pontin (Why We Can't Solve Big Problems, MIT Technology Review, 24 October 2012):

Let's stipulate that venture-backed entrepreneurialism is essential to the development and commercialization of technological innovations. But it is not sufficient by itself to solve big problems, nor could its relative sickliness by itself undo our capacity for collective action through technology. The answer is that these things are complex, and that there is no one simple explanation....Sometimes we fail to solve big problems because our institutions have failed....Sometimes big problems that had seemed technological turn out not to be so, or could more plausibly be solved through other means.... Yet the hope that an entrenched problem with social costs should have a technological solution is very seductive -- so much so that disappointment with technology is inevitable.... Finally, sometimes big problems elude any solution because we don't really understand the problem.

Various industries, including the aerospace industry, have developed particular forms of complexity index (for example, Complex Systems and the Darnall-Preston Complexity Index). In discussing Why is Mars so Hard? (The Space Review), Jeff Foust notes that produced by The Aerospace Corporation (Bob Bitten, Perspectives on NASA Mission Cost and Schedule Performance Trends, 12 August 2009). This identifies when a mission is too fast and when a mission is too cheap -- and concludes that missions that have the greatest complexity, are highest cost and longest development. The Index is framed according to hypotheses including:

• Complexity Index calculated based on performance, mass, power and technology choices for purposes of comparison
• Relationship between complexity and "failures" investigated compared with adequacy of cost and schedule resources
• Method to assess complexity at the system-level should allow more informed overall decisions to be made for new systems being conceived

Some use is made of such an approach with respect to non-technological initiatives, as with the Economic Complexity Index, a holistic measure of the production characteristics of large economic systems. The concerrn here is the assessment of complexity by science in engaging with a down-to-Earth problem -- by comparison with projects like going to Mars, or promoting high-budget physics projects.

There is a sense in which the specificity of the extraterrestrial -- viewed through cognitive telescopes offering a form of tunnel vision -- is a form of conceptual displacement, readily to be interpreted as social irresponsibility. Efforts are made to correct this impression by suggesting that such exploration contributes to the "advancement of human knowledge". Little is said of how complicit such activity is with placement of satellites and military resources in space -- perhaps to be dubiously recognized as "dual-use methodology".

Perhaps most extraordinary is the recognition of some involved that humanity will need to leave Planet Earth -- shortly? -- in order to occupy the environments in which it can continue to replicate the complex patterns of problems that science has been unable to address on Earth (cf. Clara Moskowitz, Stephen Hawking Says Humanity Won't Survive Without Leaving Earth, SPACE.com, 10 August 2010; John M. Smart, The Transcension Hypothesis: sufficiently advanced civilizations invariably leave our universe, and implications for METI and SETI. Acta Astronautica, 78, September-October 2012). The imagination of the young is harnessed to such escapism. The widely-commented film Avatar (2009) offers many lessons in this regard.

The purpose here is explore a checklist of priorities and related considerations which science chooses to neglect in favour of associating its image with what is far away and long ago as being vital to the human enterprise. This could be caricatured as "cherry-picking", or a quest for "low hanging fruit", as being the most appropriate use of the intellectual resources of science. It could also be questioned as an indication of the subservience of science to vested interests able to influence through funding the direction of research (if not the results required). This neglect is also explored in terms of the renunciation by science of engagement with the so-called "wicked problems" variously explored with respect to planning and governance.

Part of the difficulty lies in an unhealthy interpretation of science by its advocates -- an approach increasingly defined as "scientism". This refers to belief in the universal applicability of the scientific method and approach, and the view that empirical science constitutes the most authoritative worldview, or the most valuable part of human learning -- to the exclusion of other viewpoints and approaches. Apologists for "science" have the greatest difficulty in distinguishing it from scientism -- and communicating that distinction. Hence the even greater ambiguity in the case of "scientist". This exploration follows from an earlier argument (Knowledge Processes Neglected by Science: insights from the crisis of science and belief, 2012).

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