Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book uses the word 'science' in the Anglo-Saxon sense to mean primarily the natural sciences, and occasionally the social sciences; but it is important to remember the original sense of the word as the Europeans use it. The application of science through technology depends upon a widespread group of enthusiasts for science and technology, well regarded, and in high places in commerce, industry and government. The book presents an argument that, yet to link in any systematic fashion the series of changes which have occurred in the past in the economy, and are occurring now with the changes in the organized body of knowledge, is a very complicated process. Research is a function—perhaps a declining one—of the number of scientists. The number of scientists correlates very roughly with the size of higher education.