Role 1: Principal Intelligence Agency of Civil Society (According to John Ziman, this is the pivotal role that science should perform in our society). Scientists are selected, educated and sponsored to provide timely insights and solutions to everyone else. How are scientists organized for this task? How is this organization evolving?

Contemplate the following excerpt about the example of sociology, quoted from Knowledge Federation as a Principle of Social Organization of Knowledge Creation and Sharing
(You may also look at "Knowledge Work Has a Flat Tire")

After the Second World War sociology grew dramatically, and by the 1980s the
number of sociologists and sociology publications increased more than five-fold. At
the same time, sociology divided itself into a number of regional and methodological
sub-specialties, which were rapidly losing contact with one another.
The disadvantages of this style of organization were easily recognized, and in the
1989 a conference was organized by two leading researchers, European Pierre
Bourdieu and American James Coleman, to explore the possibility of bridging the
dividing lines and putting sociology back together. In the epilog to the book that
resulted from this conference, Bourdieu argued that “the progress of scientific reason in sociology hinges crucially on a transformation of the social organization of
scientific production and communication.”

Bourdieu’s argumentation is insightful and worth quoting:
“Max Weber (1978) reminds us that, in the art of warfare, the greatest progress
originated not in technical inventions but in transformations of the social organization of the warriors, as for instance in the case of the invention of the
Macedonian phalanx. One may, along the same line, ask whether a transformation of the social organization of scientific production and circulation and, in particular, of the forms of communication and exchange through which logical and empirical control is carried out would not be capable of contributing to the progress of scientific reason in sociology—and to do so more powerfully than the refinement of new technologies of measurement or the endless warnings and ’presuppositional’ discussions of epistemologists and methodologists. I have in mind here a scientific politique—that is, policy and politics—whose goal would be to foster scientific communication and debate across the many divisions associated with rational traditions and with the fragmentation of social science into empirical subspecialties, theoretical paradigms, and methodological schools.”

The same reasoning may be taken a step further. Bourdieu’s focus was on
the progress of scientific reason in sociology. The disadvantages of the fragmented
organization of sociology, however, become more accented when we consider them in the context of the knowledge production in the society. A consequence of the
fragmentation of sociology is that our society no longer has the sociology to inform it about its problems. If the sociologists cannot put their views and ideas together and give us a coherent idea of what is happening in our society and what action is required—how can we do that?

REFLECTION: (Effectiveness, efficiency, contribution to knowledge) Think of academic creation and communication of knowledge as a gigantic mechanism or algorithm. Its purpose is to take the best advantage of available resources (knowledge, and knowledge workers) to provide the (functionally) right knowledge to society. Think about improving the efficiency or effectiveness of this 'algorithm' by a small amount, say, 1%. Normally, each of us who do research is capable of contributing, very roughly speaking, one person-lifetime amount of knowledge. But if you would manage to improve the over-all system of knowledge production and distribution by even a tiny amount, the resulting effect would be comparable to millions of personal contributions. And as the above two examples might suggest, a much larger, qualitative improvement might be possible.

Role 2: Foundations for truth and worldview. This is the role that science actually is performing in our society. At school we learn physics, mathematics, biology and chemistry, and to look at the world in the 'scientific' way.

In his book "Physics and Philosophy,"  Nobel Laureate physicist and progenitor of quantum mechanics Werner Heisenberg provides a careful historical account showing how what most of us, including most of us scientists, still consider as 'the scientific worldview' has been disproved by science. His account may be summarized as follows: The mechanistic view of the universe (certain assumptions about the nature of reality) allowed us to build certain experimental machinery, which in turn allowed us to look at parts of reality that are far too small to be experienced directly. We found that they behave in ways that contradict the original worldview (assumptions). Hence the whole process had the structure of a reductio ad absurdum disproof of the original worldview, which according to that worldview is a valid way of proving things wrong.

Heisenberg concluded his account as follows:

“In this way, finally, the nineteenth century developed an extremely rigid frame for natural

science which formed not only science but also the general outlook of great masses of people. This frame was supported by the fundamental concepts of classical physics, space, time, matter and causality; the concept of reality applied to the things or events that we could perceive by our senses or that could be observed by means of the refined tools that technical science had provided. Matter was the primary reality. The progress of science was pictured as a crusade of conquest into the material world. Utility was the watchword of the time.

On the other hand, this frame was so narrow and rigid that it was difficult to find a place in it for many concepts of our language that had always belonged to its very substance, for instance, the concepts of mind, of the human soul or of life. (…) It was especially difficult to find in this framework room for those parts of reality that had been the object of the traditional religion and they seemed now more or less only imaginary. (…) Confidence in the scientific method and in rational thinking replaced all other safeguards of the human mind. (…) 

Coming back now to the contributions of modern physics, one may say that the most important change brought about by its results [the boldface is ours] consists in the dissolution of this rigid frame of concepts of the nineteenth century. Of course many attempts had been made before to get away from this rigid frame which seemed obviously too narrow for an understanding of the essential parts of reality. (…) Only experimental research itself, carried out with all the refined equipment that technical science could offer, and its mathematical interpretations, provided the basis for a critical analysis—or, one may say, enforced the critical analysis—of those concepts, and finally resulted in the dissolution of the rigid frame."

REFLECTION (Next Renaissance) You will easily notice that Heisenberg was pointing at an error in our way of thinking, which gave prominence to certain values and ultimately oriented the evolution of our society (you will recall that changing this way of evolving, or 're-evolution' as we are calling this change, is the main purpose of The Game). The last, historical Renaissance, or more precisely Englightenment, resulted when fruits of a more 'enlightened' thinking replaced an outdated worldview maintained by the Church and tradition. The message that Heisenberg gave us is Physics and Philosophy is that a similar change is now needed for fundamental reasons (our thinking has brought us to the conclusion that our thinking is wrong).  The Potsdam Manifesto 2005 (co-written by Hans-Peter Dürr, Heisenberg's graduate student who inherited him in the role of Director of Max Planck Institute Munich), subtitled "We must learn to think in a new way" is a more recent attempt to voice Heisenberg's call.

Role 3: Academia as 'meme custodian.'  Academia as an institution has the role of a custodian of culturally relevant knowledge or 'memes' — develop the standards for good knowledge, good art, good (...) and spread the good memes through education and in other ways.

REFLECTION (Enter information technology) Think of information technology as a gigantic, enormously powerful global amplifier of memes. Two things could have happened: Academia could have taken advantage of information technology by implementing its key functions in the new technology; or academia could have considered its role as academic 'business as usual,' and abandoned the new technology to commercial and superficial interests. Which of the two possibilities manifested? What emerged as results? What insight or attitude change in the academia might be a remedy?

Role 4: 'Paradigm' — science or 'the scientific method' stands for the 'right' way of exploring the world and making sense of the world (the socially sanctioned paradigm). A textbook example of a paradigm shift in science is the 'Copernican revolution' — change from the geocentric to the heliocentric model in cosmology. (For correct understanding of the notion of a paradigm and for the reflection below, it is helpful to observe that it is not necessarily the case that the former is wrong and the latter right; one may place the center of the coordinate system into any point of space one chooses; the difference is that the heliocentric view leads to incomparably simpler and clearer models.)

REFLECTION (Other paradigms are possible — let's create them consciously) The present idea, outlook and organization of science, and its ascent to its dominant role in our culture's foundations, originated when the successes of Newton and his colleagues appeared to warrant the belief that one day all observable or 'real' phenomena would be understood in terms of simple, causal-mechanical models, similar to the ones that Newton provided for astrophysics. Naturally perhaps, the construction of such models was considered as an approach to knowledge that all knowledge work should emulate. Is this assumption still warranted? Think about trying to understand the metabolism of the human body in terms its estimated 75000 enzymes; think about splitting of the atom into some 150 'subatomic particles;' think about our intuitive notions of time and space becoming 'relativized.' Is this sort of model building still the only or the best to make sense of the world?

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Vision: Contemporary Science

(A technical note: The bridge we offer to the vision below is 'foundations building'. The idea is to (1) observe that the assumption that any foundation or paradigm is right in the sense of providing objectively true knowledge has serious problems: as Berger and Luckmann have shown in their classic work, among others, and as a look at the diversity of realities represented by the world cultures, 'objective realities' should rather be considered as social constructions; and (2) to define the foundations by making a convention. Throughout the present GcG prototype, the design epistemology is used as a prototype foundation [...].)
 
An opportunity that is now before us is to begin a development in the sciences that is  similar to what was happening in the arts a century ago.

This analogy is rather accurate and interesting to explore. Think, for example, about the changes in painting: Standards of excellence that were based on mirroring nature by imitating the technique of the Old Masters became obsolete;  something quite different began to be recognized as ‘contemporary art.’ After this change happened, to become members of an art academy, artists needed to be creative also in the very way in which they were doing their art. It was no longer the artists’ skill in following an established  pattern that distinguished them as artists, but their ability, and even their courage to challenge and recreate those patterns.

Familiar factors enabled this change. Photography was developed, and also psychoanalysis… It felt pointless to try to record accurately what was seen in nature. And it felt liberating to paint what was seen within, and to experiment with the technique, and to discover new ways of doing art. But I believe that the main factor that contributed to this change was a meme and an impulse that the 20th century needed to receive from its artists, and did receive – namely the spirit of departing from traditional forms, and of free invention and creativity.

It is now a similar shift of values, and a similar deconstruction and reconstruction of routines, manners of expression and standards of excellence that this new century requires of us knowledge workers.

There is, however, a difference between contemporary art and what I believe will become contemporary science: Contemporary art was and still predominantly is art for its own sake. The approach to science that we are now called on to create will be science for planetary and human wellbeing.

To reverse the disquieting trends and begin a new era of progress, we knowledge workers must free ourselves from old  patterns. We must become truly creative!

Our key challenge is to empower talented young researchers to perceive this opportunity and dare to question the conventional academic superego. It is to that end that my critical remarks in this blog post have been written.