Alexander Krauss - Böcker

How do we spark new scientific discoveries? How can we accelerate new breakthroughs in science? These are some of the biggest unsolved questions in science. Many believe that discoveries arise by chance or serendipity. The Engine of Scientific Discovery illustrates, for the first time, how we can actively speed up the pace of new breakthroughs by developing better methods and tools of discovery which enable us to see and think in entirely new ways. New tools are the lenses through which we discover what we often did not even know existed: improved microscopes uncovered microorganisms and viruses, x-ray methods exposed the structure of DNA, particle accelerators detected subatomic particles, and advanced telescopes revealed galaxies. This book explores science's biggest discoveries--spanning all Nobel Prize discoveries and over 200 other major discoveries. The findings are striking: science's over 750 major discoveries have been triggered by first developing a new method or instrument that made the breakthrough possible. In fact, most discoveries are now uncovered within just a few years after designing the needed tool. This pattern reveals how our transformative new tools are The Engine of Scientific Discovery--a fundamental principle of scientific progress overlooked until now. By shifting our attention to inventing new tools as the key to advancing new breakthroughs, we can spark a methodological revolution in science. Instead of waiting for breakthroughs, we can actively design and build new tools of discoveries. What if the next great breakthroughs depend not just on asking better questions, but developing better tools to ask and answer them--on entirely new ways of discovering? A new theory of discovery emerges, offering a roadmap for accelerating progress across science.

This is an open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 International licence. It is free to read on the Oxford Academic platform and offered as a free PDF download from OUP and selected open access locations.How do we drive new knowledge and science? What are their present boundaries? And how can we improve science? We still do not understand these essential questions about science well, even though science is at the foundation of modern society.The emerging field of the science of science can provide answers. The central challenge of the field is accounting for and integrating the different empirical and theoretical knowledge across disciplines into a holistic field and uncovering the general mechanism driving science.Science of Science is the first book to provide an integrated framework for the field and thus aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the foundations and limits of science. The book integrates 14 scientific fields and illustrates how our evolved mind (that enables us to observe, experiment and solve problems) makes doing science possible but also shapes what and how we observe. Our scientific methods and instruments (such as statistics and electron microscopes) enable us to study a much larger range of phenomena but also puts constraints on how we measure them. Institutions and funding shape what knowledge we produce and how we evaluate our evidence, among other influences. Here, taking an interdisciplinary approach, Krauss explains how the sophisticated scientific tools we develop are the main driving force of creating new knowledge and advancing science. This methodological toolbox sets the scope and limits of what we can know and what is possible in science - while economic, social, and historical influences help shape what we study within that scope and those limits. The book provides a unifying theory for the field of science of science - the new-methods-drive-science theory. By better understanding the foundations of science we will also show how we can reduce the constraints and biases that we and our scientific methods and instruments face to advance science and push its present boundaries.

​While the analysis is not the first to investigate empirically the effects of different individual or household factors on school access and completion of Ghanaians, it extends previous work by simultaneously incorporating individual, household, community, regional and national characteristics and also illustrates the latest evidence by applying international data sources and unusually detailed household survey data for a sub-Saharan country. Its focus is threefold: (i) gaining a richer understanding of which external influences hinder educational access and attainment in Ghana, (ii) how to better tackle these challenges and (iii) analyzing how educational development affects the country‘s overall development. An interview with the Minister of Education helps guide the policy orientation of the analysis by identifying several critical challenges and areas of needed policy attention. Findings from the data analysis indicate that the geographic divide between the North and South, increased economic growth, demographic pressure and a number of individual, household and community factors especially children‘s nutritional and labour status are the most important challenges in increasing levels of education among Ghanaians in years to come. Finally, the analysis pilots a new and comprehensive results- and capacity-focused policy matrix to help the Government of Ghana realign policy priorities and reform existing programs. To this end, respective policy levers on the demand- and supply-side are discussed, with particular reference to external and demand-side interventions which have not received the necessary attention at the policy-level to improve educational opportunities and outcomes at all levels.​