Real Science

The New York Times has a fascinating article, "Voices: What's Next in Science" which gives ten predictions from leading scientists from a variety of disciplines - biology to genomics.  These are near-term predictions, based on the directions the field is going.  And quite-frankly, some of them are mind-blowing.

My personal favorite is from Steven Strogatz, Professor of Applied Mathematics at Cornell University:

“We’re going to see scientific results that are correct, that are predictive, but are without explanation. We may be able to do science without insight, and we may have to learn to live without it. Science will still progress, but computers will tell us things that are true, and we won’t understand them.”

If I understand this correctly, it means computers will tell us things that are correct, and that even if we cannot understand them we will just have to trust.  Sounds more like Faith than Science.  And yes, this is science, not science fiction.  Amazing! - check out the other predictions at the link above.