THE SLOW SCIENCE
MANIFESTO
We are scientists. We
don’t blog. We don’t
twitter. We take our
time.
Don’t get us wrong—we
do say yes to
the accelerated science
of the early 21st
century. We say yes to
the constant flow of
peer-review journal
publications and their
impact; we say yes to
science blogs and media
&
PR
necessities; we say yes
to increasing
specialization and
diversification in all
disciplines. We also say
yes to research feeding
back into health care
and future prosperity.
All of us are in this
game, too.
However, we maintain
that this cannot be all.
Science needs time to
think. Science needs
time to read, and time
to fail. Science does
not always know what it
might be at right now.
Science develops
unsteadily, with jerky
moves and
unpredictable leaps
forward—at the same
time, however, it creeps
about on a very slow
time scale, for which
there must be room and
to which justice must be
done.
Slow science was pretty
much the only science
conceivable for hundreds
of years; today, we
argue, it deserves
revival and needs
protection. Society
should give scientists
the time they need, but
more importantly,
scientists must take
their time.
We do need time to
think. We do need time
to digest. We do need
time to misunderstand
each other, especially
when fostering lost
dialogue between
humanities and natural
sciences. We cannot
continuously tell you
what our science means;
what it will be good
for; because we simply
don’t know yet. Science
needs time.
—Bear with us, while
we think.
|
