Editorial — The Knowledge Gap

Abstract

Science and its technologies, with their universal validity and utilization, should bring people together more effectively than any other human activity. Indeed, they do this brilliantly for those devoted to common research pursuits, such as the worldwide collaborations in genomics and proteomics, the much larger task of fi nding out how proteins do their work in cells; and for numerous commercial technologies, such as satellite communications. But the ever-accelerating acquisition of knowledge has also had the opposite effect, through increasing the separation of those who are part of this process from those who are not. Such a gap has of course existed since modern science began in the 17 century; but by now it has become a schism between different mental worlds. This causes misunderstandings, antagonisms and confrontations. The knowledge gap does not preclude the ability of everyone on both sides of the divide to make use of the most sophisticated scientifi c technologies. It is amazing how the millions who talk to each other around the world on mobile phones rarely if ever look at the little gadget with the awe it deserves. Numberless essential activities are based on scientifi c knowledge without needing explicit understanding. Technicians in medical laboratories know how to determine the presence or absence of each of the many proteins essential for blood clotting, without understanding how they bring this about. To do such work effectively requires, as in innumerable other activities, knowledge up to a certain level, so that imparting the knowledge-base of all imaginable skills is an important element in calls for “education, education, education”. But looked at right across the world this level of education remains way behind what the technological environment requires. Poor countries struggle to maintain the even more basic learning needed for survival. In many countries education is impeded by bigotry, as when a total ban on women’s education was imposed in Afghanistan, and as in some parts of the United States where teaching of the theory of evolution is forbidden — This at a time when the President of the Royal Society can speak of Darwin’s theory as having much the same standing as Newton’s law of gravitation. Even those going up to University from the best and most expensive private schools may be thoroughly conversant within the humanities while lacking all knowledge of basic biology or even of their own body functions, thus reinforcing C.P. Snow’s “two cultures”. Thus, whilst just about everybody uses scientifi c technologies, only a small proportion understand or want to understand what they are using. Many people lack the time, the energy or the willingness to take in new kinds of information and to think in unfamiliar ways. To the extent that remains true, this knowledge gap persists. But knowledge is no more than a tool in the quest for understanding. Understanding the mechanisms of blood clotting may be of no direct concern to laboratory technicians but is crucial for devising antithrombotic drugs. This understanding came about when Gwyn Macfarlane in Oxford and Oscar Ratnoff in Cleveland independently proposed that each of the many essential proteins acts on the next in a sequence or cascade, ending with the formation of the insoluble protein fi brin that makes the clot. The general point is that the juggling of quite a limited number of facts in receptive scientifi c minds can bring forth far-reaching generalizations. That has been the essence of scientifi c discovery, and shows up the gap between knowledge and understanding. In many fi elds of science this modus operandi is in danger of being buried under avalanches of new knowledge. From astrophysics to genetics and proteomics, technological developments in combination with computerization are generating factual information at much greater rates than individuals or even super-computers can cope with. This has created a new kind of gap within the scientifi c community itself, by producing opposing effects on the discovery scene.