I explains several elements that I find frustrating: science is supposed to provide useful knowledge we can use improve ourselves and the world, but wow, it’s so hard to actually extract readily usable knowledge out of a bunch scientific papers, since so much is written in a form not adequate to the human brain.
Scientific production and communication cannot be seen as separate tasks: they are one and the same thing.
Science is, after all, a human enterprise and it has to be understood in human terms, otherwise it becomes a baroque accumulation of decorative items, just like gold in the paws of a dragon. Henri Poincaré : “Science is built up of facts, as a house is built of stones. But an accumulation of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house”
Nice post, thanks !
I explains several elements that I find frustrating: science is supposed to provide useful knowledge we can use improve ourselves and the world, but wow, it’s so hard to actually extract readily usable knowledge out of a bunch scientific papers, since so much is written in a form not adequate to the human brain.
I really like this article on the topic :