I think this is spot on. I'm a big fan of Linked Research and the technology behind it, namely linked data. I think you've touched on a wider truth. Not only does science follow funding. And science follow measure. Both follow number. This is captured by Descartes in returning from the battle of Prague, Bila Hora, an angel appeared to him to him and said "The conquest of nature is to be achieved through measure and number." Science has followed this system ever since, in derogation to nature. Of course the Christian tradition he was brought up with also though various books viewed nature as fallen, so it was perhaps an easy idea to propagate. This idea has now taken over the world. We live in a numerical, quantitative, measured and economic model based world. And it is a world that doesnt work. McLuhan in one of his great volumes ponders the shortness of the phonetic alphabet as a means of compartmentalization. Not only do we live in numerical, it's decimal numerical, derived from having 10 digits, which is an awkward number system to do just about anything. Is it any wonder that most people have numerical anxiety today? I was watching a movie yesterday (5th wave) about aliens coming to earth and trying to wipe out the humans, how would they do it? An answer might be as simple as "give them a base 10 number system". Science has linear, hierarchical roots, and tries to measure largely non linear spontaneous things. It only works for a small subset, and because of this over emphasis on testability, misses out on a large pieces of the puzzle. Linked data on the other hand is non linear, spontaneous, self organizing and emergent. It is well aligned to nature and imho well placed to model it. Given the last 100 years of science and history, you dont need to be a betting man to know that our current path as a species is unsustainable. We need a new way. Trying to assign one of 10 numbers to anything on the planet is seductive, but perhaps the root of all evil. Maybe, just maybe, Linked Research is the solution ..
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March 22, 2016 15:06
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<https://gist.github.com/melvincarvalho/177b0d4d8f36a13dab8d> <http://rdfs.org/sioc/ns#reply_of> <http://blog.mynarz.net/2016/03/in-science-form-follows-funding.html> .