GTCC Stellar Society Lecture

"The End of Science as We Know It: Lessons for Today from the Scientific Revolution and the Industrial Revolution"

Lecture by Dr. Tony Crider

STEM careers have long been associated with high pay, intellectual prestige, and social authority. Paradoxically, many of the tools now poised to disrupt or eliminate those careers were created by STEM researchers themselves. As artificial intelligence approaches and, in some ways, surpasses human intelligence, how will the nature of scientific research change, and what human skills, if any, will remain essential in that process? At the same time, public trust in expertise and higher education appears to be eroding. If scientific facts are increasingly greeted with skepticism or outright dismissal, can science continue to meaningfully shape society? To explore these questions, this talk looks backward as much as forward. We examine the trial of Galileo as a case study in how societies respond when new knowledge threatens existing power structures. We then turn to the craftsmen of Manchester in the 1800s, whose innovations sparked the Industrial Revolution while simultaneously undermining traditional forms of skilled labor. Together, these moments illuminate patterns that may help us understand the revolution we are living through now, and the uncertain future of STEM itself.

About the Speaker: Dr. Crider is a Professor of Astrophysics at Elon University in North Carolina. He received his Ph.D. in space physics and astronomy from Rice University.