Tensions between science and society

Paul Hoyningen-Huene

pp. 417-424

in: Francesco Coniglione (ed), Mirrors, Axiomathes 19 (4), 2009.

Abstract

What are the "costs" of science besides its expected benefits? Specifically, how "tense" does the relation between science and society become in the light of the ever-increasing pressure of the latter on the former? In this paper I am going to discus the increasing global inequality deriving from phenomena such as the "brain drain" and from the problems relative to the relationship between ethics and science. I will conclude by considering the tension that arises out of the disciplinary structure of science and the non-disciplinary structure of the most pressing problems that society is faced with and has to react to.