Autobiography

“The Sciences and the Arts in a Digital World”

326 pages (plus 22 pages front matter) and 143 colour plates

ISBN 978-1-7397942-0-0

Summary/Abstract

This autobiography details the development of computing and its applications over five decades, from the 1970s to the 2020s. Information technology has permeated every discipline and every industrial sector, both enabling and forcing transformation. It has facilitated the rapid advancement of theory and practice in many disciplines – theory via modelling, and practice via data analysis and visualization. Processing information more than a million times faster than the human brain has opened up new dimensions of investigation, problem solving, and analysis. The phrase “faster than thought” (Lord Bowden) encapsulates the essence of this development.

Disciplines have developed in a compartmentalised fashion from their origins in the thirteenth century in rhetoric, grammar, and logic. Investigations of the natural world led to the scientific and industrial revolutions and the development of the disciplines in science, engineering, and medicine, and latterly in computer science, human-computer interaction, and artificial intelligence. New disciplines emerge over time as knowledge advances, and often arise at the boundaries of existing disciplines. However, debates about what constitute fundamental knowledge still continue. The arts and humanities often claim precedence due to their prior origins in time.

Increasing interaction and collaboration between disciplines has been facilitated by technology, networking, social media and the rise of grand challenges requiring larger groups of researchers with complementary expertise. Research collaborations have been established between institutions and companies in Europe via research grants funded by the European Union. These were also extended into an international context via collaborations between the European Union and the National Science Foundation in the USA. However, uncertainties about research collaboration with Europe post Brexit has led to the exit of faculty and their research groups from the UK to European institutions in order for the continuation of their research funding to be assured. The outcome is a net loss of research assets in the UK.

The contributions of technology to recent advances in the arts and humanities are examined. Conversely, the ways in which arts and humanities have contributed to science and technology are reviewed. Large projects often provide opportunities for interdisciplinary teams to work together to achieve a common goal.

The standards and quality of educational environments are evaluated on national and international metrics, and the extent to which they are improving or declining over time is examined. The UK is benchmarked with other nations. The results are unfavourable to the UK. Shortages of teachers and the decline of buildings and estate have resulted in many educational environments being no longer fit for purpose. Root and branch renewal and reform is needed in the UK.

C.P. Snow’s thesis of the 1950s of a fundamental divide between the arts and the sciences is examined. Little appears to have changed in the UK since then in the structures of primary, secondary, and tertiary education, and the ways research is funded. Although some interdisciplinary collaboration is taking place, discipline silos still exist in order to protect academic assets and budgets. Research evaluations and grant proposals still continue primarily on a disciplinary basis. Post-Brexit, the opportunities for UK involvement in large multi-disciplinary research and development projects appear to be much reduced. Therefore, there is limited incentive for interdisciplinary collaboration.

For a more detailed summary of the book online, please email r.a.earnshaw@bradford.ac.uk

For a copy of the printed book, please email r.a.earnshaw@bradford.ac.uk

There is no e-book for this 1^st edition.