New Times and New Challenges for Information Science: From Cellular Systems to Human Societies
Bioinformation and Systems Biology Group, Aragon Institute of Health Science (IACS), Avda San Juan Bosco, 13, Zaragoza 50009, Spain
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Information 2014, 5(1), 101-119; https://doi.org/10.3390/info5010101
Received: 11 December 2013 / Revised: 24 January 2014 / Accepted: 26 January 2014 / Published: 14 February 2014
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Selected Papers from FIS 2013 Moscow)
The extraordinary scientific-technical, economic, and social transformations related to the widespread use of computers and to the whole information and communication technologies have not been accompanied by the development of a scientific “informational” perspective helping make a coherent sense of the spectacular changes occurring. Like in other industrial revolutions of the past, technical praxis antedates the emergence of theoretical disciplines. Apart from the difficulties in handling new empirical domains and in framing new ways of thinking, the case of information science implies the difficult re-evaluation of important bodies of knowledge already well accommodated in specific disciplines. Herein, we will discuss how a new understanding of the “natural information flows” as they prototypically occur in living beings—even in the simplest cells—could provide a sound basis for reappraising fundamental problems of the new science. The role of a renewed information science, multidisciplinarily conceived and empirically grounded, widely transcends the limited “library” and knowledge-repositories mission into which classical information science was cajoled during past decades. Paraphrasing the Spanish philosopher J. Ortega y Gasset, the overhaul of information science itself becomes “the challenge of our time”.
View Full-Text
Keywords:
information science; natural information flow; communication; self-production; cellular model system; knowledge recombination; scientomics
▼
Show Figures
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License
MDPI and ACS Style
Del Moral, R.; Navarro, J.; Marijuán, P.C. New Times and New Challenges for Information Science: From Cellular Systems to Human Societies. Information 2014, 5, 101-119. https://doi.org/10.3390/info5010101
AMA Style
Del Moral R, Navarro J, Marijuán PC. New Times and New Challenges for Information Science: From Cellular Systems to Human Societies. Information. 2014; 5(1):101-119. https://doi.org/10.3390/info5010101
Chicago/Turabian StyleDel Moral, Raquel; Navarro, Jorge; Marijuán, Pedro C. 2014. "New Times and New Challenges for Information Science: From Cellular Systems to Human Societies" Information 5, no. 1: 101-119. https://doi.org/10.3390/info5010101
Find Other Styles
Search more from Scilit