[Fis] Concluding the Session on the Great Domains - brief analysis

[Pedro C. Marijuan]

Dear Moises, Ken, and FIS colleagues,

First of all, thanks to you two for chairing the discussion session. 
Also, for a different matter, to Raquel del Moral. She has been working 
with me in the complete archive of fis messages and recapitulating the 
whole fis discussion-sessions celebrated (starting by the the "virtual 
conference" long ago, in 1998). It is a big novelty in the fis webpage. 
Please, have a glance at:  http://fis.sciforum.net/fis-discussion-sessions/
Hopefully it will allow quite many future bibliometric studies...
 
A closer relationship between classical information/library science and 
a renewed information science as was attempted in the session is 
important. Organizing the stock of accumulated knowledge in this epoch 
of multidisciplinarity, of instant data access, of increasing research 
complexity, of pervasive big data, of massive innovation, etc. should 
imply new thinking styles and a new reflection on the individual mind 
versus the aggregate system of collective intelligence. Unfortunately I 
do not see much advancement in that matter --even the opposite. The talk 
about the "global brain" is superficial at best. The attentional 
saturation of the social environment during the last decade is strongly 
diminishing the individual capabilities for really creative thought and 
deep interdisciplinary engagement (for instance, less and less 
interesting new books). The dangers inherent in the "mechanization of 
knowledge", as was warning a celebrated essay by Harold Innis (McLuhan's 
mentor), could become real  in our time.

So, if the above lamentations have a grain of truth, we have not much 
succeeded in the ongoing discussion. If the new mission of library 
science, hand to hand with the new information science, should also 
include the qualitative thinking on the social and institutional 
conditions for advancement of knowledge in its widest sense (humanist 
too), we have a lot of pending work to do. I hope not to be sounding 
pessimistic! I was motivated by some recent comment of an Indian 
researcher (Sunita Narain) on waste management: "the key obstacle is 
that everyday challenges are not top priorities for research and 
innovation. Indian science has always been fascinated by the 'masculine' 
agendas of space and genetics, not reinventing the toilet. Instead, 
science must meet the needs of poor people. We need to devise ways to 
prevent pollution rather than cleaning it up afterwards. Indian research 
has to be more humble, nimble and investigative... India's ambition 
should be to become front-runner in the race to save the planet." 
(Nature 2015, vol. 521, pp:155)

Best--Pedro


Moisés André Nisenbaum wrote:
>
> Dear FIS Colleagues,
>
> First, I want to thank Pedro and everyone the opportunity to 
> introduce, participate and observe the development of debate “THE 
> FOURTH GREAT DOMAIN OF SCIENCE: INFORMATIONAL?”
>
>  I spent the last days documenting the posts related to this 
> discussion. On this basis, I will present some numbers and comments 
> about these rich discussions.
>
>


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Pedro C. Marijuán
Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
50009 Zaragoza, Spain
Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)
pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es
http://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
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