Abstract
In 1962 Lipmann wrote a short paper entitled Disproportions Created by the Exponential Growth of Knowledge. The core of his thesis was as follows:
“... changes have increased with unusual rapidity in degree and impact through our success in the natural sciences.... When we plot progress against time, we get a soaring curve, the upper one in our figure (Fig. 1).... this describes only part of the overall picture of our man-dominated earth. The missing part is... the social relationship between men... On the average,... this change has been, at best, not exponential but rather proportional with time, and slow at that, as indicated by the lower curve of the figure. These two curves, the one running away from the other, I believe dramatically present the problem of our time.... They reflect the schizophrenic condition of man as a rational animal overtaking... man as a social animal. The only remedy is for the lower curve to adjust;... can we remedy the situation before irreparable damage has been done?”1 (Emphasis added)
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Monro, R. (1980). Molecular Biology, Culture, and Society. In: Chapeville, F., Haenni, AL. (eds) Chemical Recognition in Biology. Molecular Biology, Biochemistry and Biophysics, vol 32. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81503-4_30
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-81503-4_30
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