The Future
Now in the twilight of my scientific career, when the original enthusiasm and energy have considerably diminished, I, more than ever, long for a place where I can devote myself without time pressures to the serene study of nature, leaving aside the haste
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The Future
The transformations occur precisely in times of crisis Paulo Coelho, O Vencedor Está Só All things appear and disappear because of the concurrence of causes and conditions. Nothing ever exists entirely alone; everything is in relation to everything else Buddha
Now in the twilight of my scientific career, when the original enthusiasm and energy have considerably diminished, I, more than ever, long for a place where I can devote myself without time pressures to the serene study of nature, leaving aside the haste for publication, the concern over funds or the excruciating bureaucracy. Many words in this text have been devoted to advice how to achieve that, how to navigate the system without becoming stuck in the bureaucratic closed loop. I think I have made it clear that it is my opinion that the inanities here revealed are crippling science today. It is difficult to escape the thought that science is turning into an industrial venture, as has been said several times here. Academia and the whole research system have been damaged but recovery is possible, the prescriptions are already being produced by eminent academics. I have accentuated in many sections above that we can all help with some initiatives. Scholars are voicing their discontent with politicians and bureaucrats, see for example the aforementioned open letter “They have chosen ignorance”, a letter you can read and endorse by signing here in the EuroScience website https://openletter.euroscience. org/; it has 19322 signatories as of June 2018. The main purpose of this chronicle has been to reveal the global perspective to the young student and lay person about where scientific research stands today, and not to provide a detailed account of how research in academia is organised… or disorganised. Other texts that provide similar views on these matters are Benjamin Ginsberg’s “The Fall of the Faculty”, or Sheila Slaughter and Gary Rhoades’ “Academic Capitalism and the New Economy” where the fact that knowledge is today not a public good but rather a commodity to be capitalized on in profit-oriented activities is clearly exposed. It should be considered again that, as © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 J. L. Perez Velazquez, The Rise of the Scientist-Bureaucrat, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-12326-0_7
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was said in the Foreword too, my words have to be taken for what they are, a warning of what one will find in the execution of scientific research, and hopefully will not deter anybody from entering the ranks of science. Things are like they are, and one must adapt oneself to them. And to demonstrate that even in these times it is still possible to follow your interest and hunt for the answers you want to find, regardless of how very basic or pure the research may be, the Epilogue following this section presents the general strategy as to how I achieved it. So, where do we go from here? It would not be surprising if, after reading this narrative, some felt that we are witnessing what some have called the end of science (“Career
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