In some fields of science, progress may have been frustratingly slow—both to the general pubic and to the professionals in those fields. For example, it is still not possible to predict volcanic eruptions or tornadoes--and warnings of imminent tornado strikes are all too short. Basically, warnings are issued only once a tornado has actually formed and been spotted.
However, it is in the biomedical fields that we have seen astonishing progress. With many miraculous new drugs and new surgical procedures, such as transplants, many illnesses and medical conditions are no longer death sentences. Patients with certain types of cancer now have much longer life expectancies. Patients with HIV/AIDS can now often live long with the virus. Generally, people are living long lives, now, with many illnesses and conditions that would have shortened their lives a few decades ago.
There are entirely new kinds of medical imaging (CT scans and MRI); and, the sequencing of the human genome has almost unlimited possibilities for associating diseases with specific genes and maybe also permitting new treatments.
I can't comment too much on the physical sciences except maybe astronomy, which has intersected my life at several junctures. Astronomy has made a lot of progress with incredible new tools such as the Hubble Space Telescope.
The field of computers, both computer hardware and software, has probably done more to transform our lives than any other technical field; but I've covered a lot of this in the posting on changes to communication.
Copyright © 2010 by Richard Stein
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