Technical civilization becomes

From this time, the technical civilization becomes the master of culture and subordinates science. Generally, one can say that, whatever a scientist made in the XXth century, he developed a next variant of arms. First of all, this concerns the following discoveries and inventions. In physics: quantum mechanics (1925),
wave mechanics (1926), Geiger counter (1928), discovery of neutron (1932), artificial radio-activity (1934), fission of nuclei (1938). In biology: discovery of vitamins (1911), establishment of man’s genetics (1912), discovery of the map of a chromosome (1919), formation of the doctrine about human heredity (1921), theory of gene (1928), etc.
The same can be said about the birth of nanotechnologies which are used now in genetic engineering demonstrating the encroachment of instrumental intellect to the intimate principles of reality.
At the same time, it becomes clear that the rate of even artificial genetic
transformations cannot compete with the self-development speed of
electronic systems. In chemistry, people became armed with macromolecular
chemistry (1925), syntheses of vitamin C (1934) and nylon (1938). In engineering:
sound movies (1919), propeller-driven aircraft (1922), jet engine (1930), valve
transmitter (1913), wireless trans-oceanic telephone (1927), television (1932),
test of the first A-bomb (1945), first artificial satellite (1957), first flight of a man
into space (1961), man’s landing on the Moon (1969), etc.

A short acquaintance with the history of scientific discoveries shows
that natural disciplines, which were developed very intensively during the
XV–XXth centuries, left behind the humanities. About the structure of nuclei,
atoms, the Earth, and Cosmos, we know much more than about the “structure”
of a man, society, or civilization. It is probable that, for this reason, knowledge
about a man and a society acquires the highest priority for the further
development of science on the whole in the countries of the West (starting from the times of the Great Depression in 1929–1934). In this case, the
leading role is allotted to such sciences as psychology, sociology, and history.
We may say that the appearance of new tendencies in the development
of the West science is caused by the exhaustiveness of the way of the
development of fundamental knowledge, including the sphere of humanitarian
disciplines. In our opinion, it is in order that the comparative analysis and
interdisciplinary exploratory synthesis, whose methodological foundation
became the thought “all was already said, beginning from the times of
antiquity”, get a significant urge.
At the same time, the overbalance to the side of “applied synthesis” and
“applied knowledge”, which arose in the West in such a way, created the social
need in the theoretical comprehension of applied scientific achievements.
Properly, this forms the foundation of the crisis of the current West science.
The present scientific crisis in the countries of the East should be
considered as such which transforms their former fundamental science into
the side of highly specialized applied researches requiring to reinforce the
interdisciplinary ties and comparativistics.
We emphasize that the tendencies of the development of science which
are ambiguous in their content and orientation express themselves most clearly
in the humanitarian sphere. The last can be explained as follows: in the
transient periods of the development of complicated social systems such as
a man, a society, or the humanity, not only their external material social
essence changes, but also the internal ideal psychic world of peoples, their
behavioural stereotypes, valuable orientations, and social norms. We can also
say that the type of a man (including a scientist-researcher) and his/her
psychoculture are changed. For example, a scientist possessing the emotionalsensitive
psychoculture which ensured him/her the solution of fundamental
problems of science is substituted by a scientist with abilities and stereotypes
of rational thinking, which predetermines the appearance of cardinal changes in
the contemporary science, including sociology.

Thus, quite adequate to the time and character of the contemporary crisis
phenomena is, in our opinion, the more differentiated (than that of T. Kuhn)
cyclic model of the development of science which is composed, respectively,
from four periods: two normative (steady) periods (“involution” and “evolution”)
and two transient (crisis) ones (“co-evolution” and “revolution”).
The steady involutionary development of science which is preceded by an
impetuous period of revolutionary discoveries, forms actually the bases of
fundamental theories gravitating to the structurization into a single metatheory
(as was, for example, with the theory of historical materialism) and to a holistic
pattern of the world which is formed (and, in their limit forms, is impressed) in the social consciousness from generation to generation such public
institutions, as schools* (middle and higher) and science** (fundamental and
applied). Typical signs of this period are the encyclopedic character of human
experience, namely, universality and fundamentality of scientific knowledge and
polytechnical abilities and skills possessed by a state and its citizens. At the same
time, science is weakly connected with practice and this gap becomes further
more essential.
The crisis state of the period of co-evolution is induced by the critical mass
of anomalous facts which do not fall into the framework of the existing scientific
paradigms and cannot be explained within the existent unique harmonious
metatheory. In this situation, there arises the urgent need “to refine” the basis of
fundamental science and, more exactly, to transform it to the side of its mirror
antipode, applied science.