A Plea For Slow Science - Part 1

Another science is possible !

A Plea for slow science :

Link to video

The compromise that has long ensured researchers the minimum of vital independence is dead. The knowledge economy is dependent on private interests. A plea for slow science to which responds, in mirror, and a century later, a brilliant pamphlet by the philosopher William James.


Like fast food, fast science is quickly done, not good and not very digestible! A speculative economy – with its bubbles and crashes – has taken hold of scientific research: researchers must interest industrial "partners", take part in the war games of the competitive economy. Conformity, competitiveness, opportunism and flexibility: this is the formula for excellence. But how to raise publicly the question of a disaster when one does not want the public to lose confidence in “its” science? Slogans such as "Save research" are consensual, even though they above all do not ask the right question: "But what should we save it from?"
This book shows that researchers must stop taking themselves for the "thinking, rational brain of humanity", refuse that their expertise be used to silence the anxiety of public opinion, to spread the belief in an inevitable scientific progress. capable of solving major societal problems. And that they would benefit from forging links with a potentially intelligent and curious public, that is to say also from producing knowledge worthy of this ambition.