Gentle Science Network
Gentle Science recognizes the special responsibility of the scientific community, for the quality of science, the quality of life in science, and its mission. Several initiatives contribute to a science in the spirit of 'Gentle Science'. We welcome further contacts.
We would like to receive your comments on
Slow Science
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.
THE SLOW SCIENCE ACADEMY
Support the Academy and express your sympathy on Facebook. You can also download the slow science manifesto and information as a 2-page pdf here and post it round your institutions. Thank you.
(c) The Slow Science Academy, 2010
SLOW SCIENCE ACADEMY · BERLIN, GERMANY · [email protected]
Science is Alive!
I like the idea of your “Gentle Science”. I established the Forum Věda žije! (which can be translated as “Science is Alive!” http://www.vedazije.cz/en ) with my friends one year ago in reaction to a critical situation related to the science and research funding in Czech. However, research funding is not the only issue for us. We are interested in the role that science, education and culture have to play in the wider social context. It is time consuming but I think needful, because the political and economic pressures are threatening the independent and unique role of science.
Zuzana Macek Jílková PhD Institute of Physiology The Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic Videnska 1083 142 20 Prague 4 Phone: +420 241 063 705 E-mail: [email protected]