The wonders of modern science

Science is a pretty amazing thing, really and every now and again I'm struck by how fast things are moving. The machines that go 'ping', the wonders of modern medicine and dentistry which I have to say really do make our lives (in the west at least) a great deal more comfortable.

And yet it seems that we are a long way of being able to work collectively to manage many of the modern problems that face us. I suppose given the success of modern science and engineering, it is natural to think that the answer lies in a technical fix, but even then, what if the technical "fix" that we need has to come from a mixture of different knowledges and experiences?

Why also do we assume that mixing up these different ways of knowing should be easy? In our science system here in New Zealand there is the implicit assumption that 'solving' complex problems is all terribly straightforward despite masses of evidence to the contrary!

There's an interesting looking conference on just this topic at: http://www.runninghot.org.nz/

C