Preface In 2014,the journal Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(BCAS)published an article(Chinese Academy of Sciences,2014)entitled Towards Excellence in Science.In part it was an injunction to Chinese scienti...Preface In 2014,the journal Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(BCAS)published an article(Chinese Academy of Sciences,2014)entitled Towards Excellence in Science.In part it was an injunction to Chinese scientists and their institutions to set higher standards for themselves,but it was also a strong statement about the values of the scientific enterprise,one based on a deep regard for truth,rigour in its pursuit,and the responsibility of science in enhancing human wellbeing.It identified the mission of science as the discovery of new knowledge in the service of society and humanity,in strengthening self-governance and self-regulation in ways that uphold the reliability of the scientific method and aspire to high standards of honesty and integrity.展开更多
The potential of big data fused with the vision of a digital Earth offers powerful opportunities to deepen understanding of the whole Earth system and the management of a sustainable planet.It is important to stand ba...The potential of big data fused with the vision of a digital Earth offers powerful opportunities to deepen understanding of the whole Earth system and the management of a sustainable planet.It is important to stand back from often confusing detail to clarify what those opportunities are and how they might be seized.The essential scientific potential of data,big or small,is to reveal patterns,which have often been the fundamental first step in stimulating inquiry,leading to new questions,new perspectives and potentially to new answers.The digital revolution has created a“digital microscope”that permits us to see patterns that have not been seen before,and when coupled with machine learning technologies to analyse them in creating statistical predictions of the behaviour of both human and non-human systems.These potentials converge with the imperative to represent an Earth system with interacting non-human and human components,as a vital contribution to the understanding and actions required in working towards planetary sustainability.But a digital Earth is also capable of being represented mathematically as a digitally networked phenomenon,analogous to an analogue computer,and should be an important target for a Big Earth Data Journal.We should also return to Al Gore’s vision of an accessible digital Earth with wide usability.Pre-determining the separate functions of parallel digital Earths risks losing one of the great potentials of big data and learning algorithms,the identification and analysis of unanticipated relationships and processes.展开更多
Governments worldwide rightly regard universities as fundamental to the achievement of many national priorities. But it is the paper’s contention that many misunderstand their true benefit to society. Investments in ...Governments worldwide rightly regard universities as fundamental to the achievement of many national priorities. But it is the paper’s contention that many misunderstand their true benefit to society. Investments in universities are increasingly based on the belief that the science labs in particular of research-intensive universities can be the source of a continuous stream of people and ideas that will spawn innovative and fast growing companies to form the nexus of the knowledge-based economy. This belief is a source of misconceived policies that offer only ultimate disillusion. It is the totality of the university enterprise that is important, as the only place where that totality of ourselves and our world is brought together, and which makes it the strongest provider of the rational explanation and meaning that societies need. In research, universities create new possibilities; in teaching, they shape new people. Its graduates learn to seek the true meaning of things: to distinguish between the true and the merely seemingly true, to verify for themselves what is stable in that very unstable compound that often passes for knowledge. It is the complex, interacting whole of the university that is the source of the separate economic, social, cultural and utilitarian benefits valued by society. It needs to be understood, valued and managed as a whole. These perceptions are a direct challenge to not only to governments but to university administrators who have been either cowed or seduced into the slipshod thinking that is leading to demands that universities cannot satisfy, whilst obscuring their most important contributions. The challenge to both is to permit autonomy without oppressive accountability, and to give staff and students the freedom to think, speculate and research. These are the very conditions of the personal and collective creativity that are the sources of a university’s deepest benefits to its society.展开更多
文摘Preface In 2014,the journal Bulletin of the Chinese Academy of Sciences(BCAS)published an article(Chinese Academy of Sciences,2014)entitled Towards Excellence in Science.In part it was an injunction to Chinese scientists and their institutions to set higher standards for themselves,but it was also a strong statement about the values of the scientific enterprise,one based on a deep regard for truth,rigour in its pursuit,and the responsibility of science in enhancing human wellbeing.It identified the mission of science as the discovery of new knowledge in the service of society and humanity,in strengthening self-governance and self-regulation in ways that uphold the reliability of the scientific method and aspire to high standards of honesty and integrity.
文摘The potential of big data fused with the vision of a digital Earth offers powerful opportunities to deepen understanding of the whole Earth system and the management of a sustainable planet.It is important to stand back from often confusing detail to clarify what those opportunities are and how they might be seized.The essential scientific potential of data,big or small,is to reveal patterns,which have often been the fundamental first step in stimulating inquiry,leading to new questions,new perspectives and potentially to new answers.The digital revolution has created a“digital microscope”that permits us to see patterns that have not been seen before,and when coupled with machine learning technologies to analyse them in creating statistical predictions of the behaviour of both human and non-human systems.These potentials converge with the imperative to represent an Earth system with interacting non-human and human components,as a vital contribution to the understanding and actions required in working towards planetary sustainability.But a digital Earth is also capable of being represented mathematically as a digitally networked phenomenon,analogous to an analogue computer,and should be an important target for a Big Earth Data Journal.We should also return to Al Gore’s vision of an accessible digital Earth with wide usability.Pre-determining the separate functions of parallel digital Earths risks losing one of the great potentials of big data and learning algorithms,the identification and analysis of unanticipated relationships and processes.
文摘Governments worldwide rightly regard universities as fundamental to the achievement of many national priorities. But it is the paper’s contention that many misunderstand their true benefit to society. Investments in universities are increasingly based on the belief that the science labs in particular of research-intensive universities can be the source of a continuous stream of people and ideas that will spawn innovative and fast growing companies to form the nexus of the knowledge-based economy. This belief is a source of misconceived policies that offer only ultimate disillusion. It is the totality of the university enterprise that is important, as the only place where that totality of ourselves and our world is brought together, and which makes it the strongest provider of the rational explanation and meaning that societies need. In research, universities create new possibilities; in teaching, they shape new people. Its graduates learn to seek the true meaning of things: to distinguish between the true and the merely seemingly true, to verify for themselves what is stable in that very unstable compound that often passes for knowledge. It is the complex, interacting whole of the university that is the source of the separate economic, social, cultural and utilitarian benefits valued by society. It needs to be understood, valued and managed as a whole. These perceptions are a direct challenge to not only to governments but to university administrators who have been either cowed or seduced into the slipshod thinking that is leading to demands that universities cannot satisfy, whilst obscuring their most important contributions. The challenge to both is to permit autonomy without oppressive accountability, and to give staff and students the freedom to think, speculate and research. These are the very conditions of the personal and collective creativity that are the sources of a university’s deepest benefits to its society.
