Big Pictures for Science
- A big picture is an abstract overview of a large, relevant environment of a special part of a cultivated activity.1 A big picture for a cultivated activity, here, science, is seen as having various resource2 qualities that can support the activity. Three important kinds of intended functionality of big pictures for science3 are to help (i) the scientist-in-the-making in orienting him or herself, and in choosing subjects, (ii) the individual scientist, or the research group, in resourcing problem solving4, and (iii) administrators in science organizations in articulating policies and in defining and programming activities that contribute to their implementation. Note that (ii) implies that a big picture can be a metaresource, a resource that refers to other resources (for alternative expressions and a detailed explanation, see note5), in addition, a metaresource of any level.6 As metaresources, big pictures for science are expected to support the treatment of metaproblems, a supreme example which is the interdisciplinarity problem.7
- Activities like (i–iii) are the natural concern of organizations whose mission is the advancement of science, as named above, science organizations. Today, there is no indication that these organizations consider the activities as any concern of theirs. This deficiency agrees with their limited assignment in embodying science administration (see later page). Requiring comprehensive redesign, science organizations should embrace supporting all resourcing — much of which will involve metaresources — of activity that advances science. This requires their current goals and functionality to be expanded. In the resulting more versatile science organizations, big pictures for science can be projected to be useful resources, generally, for improving the organization of science at all social and domain-type levels and, specifically, for integrative activities above the level of the discipline, for example, in interdisciplinary science. Summarizing, future science must have science organizations supporting the creation, dissemination, updating, and use, of big pictures for science.