Nauka

Science and technology frequently contribute to one another: scientific advances lead to the development of new technologies, and new technologies broaden the experimental potential of science, enabling advancement of research. This is a motivation behind introduction of the concept of technoscience addressing the integration of science and technology – the process progressing from the beginning of the twentieth century, which has been the source of extraordinary achievements of our civilisation, but – at the same time – has engendered global socioeconomic transformations whose negative side effects may endanger humanity. This paper is devoted to an outline of ethical challenges implied by the development of technoscience, with special emphasis of those which are rooted in the development of information technologies. It is suggested that those challenges should be met by people of technoscience in a concerted effort undertaken with philosophers and educators.

In this text, we analyze the limitations of using academic age as a proxy for biological age in the whole national science system, for which we consider both biological age and academic age of all researchers from all Polish universities, holding at least a PhD degree and participating in global academic science through international publications (N = 20 569). An approximation of a researcher's functioning in global science is having at least one publication indexed in the Scopus database in the analyzed decade 2009–2018. Thus, using the example of comprehensive data from the entire national system of science, we estimate the extent of limitations of using academic age as a proxy for biological age depending on selected independent variables and analyze both the practical and methodological implications of using academic age in academic career research, which is one of the most important components of quantitative studies of science.

The article presents the method in which the reform of the system of higher education and science in Poland in 2016–2018, constituted in the form of a framework act the “Constitution for Science” (known as Law 2.0). It was carried out, with particular emphasis on aspects of the transformation that remain in accordance with the postulates of the model of public co-management or, in relation to this model, remain in clear contradiction. The authors try to point out both the declared aspect of the processes constituting the reform as well as the actual realized dimension of those processes. Therefore, the research question that comes to the fore in the following investigations is: is it possible in the practice of public administration functioning in Poland to create regulatory solutions in line with contemporary achievements of science of administration and politics, such as the paradigm of public participation and the concept of public co-management.

Considering the diversity of higher education institutions in the United States, any examination of operations of American research universities needs to be focused on the specific university and the specific scientific discipline pursued within its framework. Based on the author’s personal experiences, gained during thirty-five years of employment as a faculty member in the Department of Electrical Engineering at Penn State University, University Park, which is thought to be an adequate representation of a quintessential research university in the United States, this paper considers select aspects of procedures involved in faculty hiring and then performance evaluation, obtaining tenure, as well as promotion to higher academic ranks. The goal of this paper is to present factual information exemplifying select procedures adopted by a major research university in the United States. The paper is not meant to express the author's opinion concerning reported procedures nor to compare them with procedures established at the research universities in other countries.

The famous English novelist, poet and essayist, Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936) approached the problem of evil differently from many 20th century writers, for example Thomas Mann ( Doctor Faustus) or Bulgakov ( The Master and Margarita). For him, the devil is a real and threatening figure, a true and powerful adversary, not an abstract force. The demon is fostered by the European crisis of values, manifested by an increasingly widespread ethical relativism. In his novels and articles Chesterton calls for dissent from evil, referring to tradition, mainly Christian. He calls for heroism and defence of faith, convinced that victory over the devil and evil, or the triumph of good is possible. The fight against the devil becomes the duty of every Christian in our times.

One of the more sensitive and touchy fields in which a confrontation occurs of significantly different visions of reality is being made by the understanding and representing of heaven. In those remarks I recall the standpoint of Catholic theologians and some of the selected scholars representing natural sciences. However, even such selective comparison shows how great the differences are between the visions of heaven sketched by the theologians and those by the natural scientists. Although they were and still are tray representatives of natural sciences, who had found and still find even if not linking points connecting those radically different views of heaven, than at least some sort of compromise in acknowledging their validity. On the other hand even them admit that it requires the use of significantly different standards of validity in theology and natural sciences.

The article contains a multifaceted analysis of Jan Kochanowski's poem “Zuzanna” in a comparative approach to the biblical prototype. Maintaining the conclusions of previous researchers stating the classicization that Kochanowski subjected the original story, the article clarifies the opinions formulated so far too univocally by examining the plot layer, the structure of the presented world, and in particular the characters, the manner of narration and the stylistic layer. In conclusion, it is stated that the humanistic consciousness influences the way the characters are built and the narrative (which has not been noticed so far), although at the same time the versification refers to a certain extent to the medieval poem.

Profiles of the three Polish humanists as remembered by prof. Michał Głowiński.

Born and died in Warsaw. Irena Wojnar started studying the humanities during World War II, at the clandestine University of Warsaw. Between 1946 and 1949 she continued her studies at the Faculty of Humanities of the University of Warsaw, in the so-called Seminar of Pedagogy II. In 1949 she was formally employed at the University and remained there until her death. Between 1958 and 1960, as a holder of the Ford Foundation scholarship, she studied at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), where she defended her doctoral dissertation “Situation actuelle de la jeunesse par rapport a l'art”. She did her fellowship and obtained habilitation at the University of Warsaw in 1965. In 1976 she became an associate professor and in 1985 a professor. From 1967 to 2004, prof. Wojnar headed the Laboratory and afterwards the Department of the Theory of Aesthetic Education at the Faculty of Pedagogy of the University of Warsaw. Professor Irena Wojnar was a member of the Committee on Pedagogical Sciences at the Polish Academy of Sciences (1976–2012, since 2016 an honorary member), the Prognosis Committee “Poland 2000 Plus” at the Presidium of the Polish Academy of Sciences (1970–2011, since 2011 an honorary member). Professor Irena Wojnar is an author of almost 300 publications: monographs, edited and co-edited collections, scripts, anthologies, translations and scientific articles. She promoted more than 400 MA and 29 PhD works.

Roman Micnas was a distinguished Polish physicist, well known for his works in the field of condensed matter theory and statistical physics. One of his best known achievements is development of theory of superconductivity with local electron pairing. He also published a number of important contributions to the theory of magnetism, theory of phase transitions, and theory of ultracold atoms on optical lattices. His more than 140 publications were cited over 3200 times by other authors. He graduated at the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics and Chemistry of Adam Mickiewicz University (AMU) in 1970, where he hold a position until his passing away on 13 January 2022. He received PhD in 1978, habilitation in 1988, and became Professor in 1990. In the Faculty of Physics of AMU he was the head of Solid State Theory Division in years 1998–2018. For his development of theory of superconductivity with local electron pairing he was awarded, together with Stanisław Robaszkiewicz, the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Scientific Prize of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAS) in 1989. In 1994 he became Corresponding Member of PAS, and in 2016 – Ordinary Member. He served a number of important functions in PAS, among others he was a member of Committee for Physics of PAS, and since 2015 a Dean of Division III of Exact Sciences and Earth Sciences of PAS. He was a member of several scientific societies: Polish Physical Society, European Physical Society, American Physical Society and American Association for Advancement of Science. He co-organized 35 home and international conferences, among others the cycle of the European Conferences „Physics of Magnetism”, which he co-chaired since 1993.

Adam Łomnicki, a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences and Academia Europaea, passed away on 15th December 2021. Adam Łomnicki was born in Warsaw, as a descendant of famous Łomnicki scholars - naturalists and mathematicians. He spent his childhood and youth in Sokołów Małopolski and Zakopane, where he completed his secondary school. In the years 1952–1957 he studied biology at the Jagiellonian University, where despite the domination of Soviet biology at the time, which denied the existence of scientific genetics and evolutionism, he had the opportunity to learn about these fields. His first job was at the Department of Nature Conservation of the Polish Academy of Sciences; he worked in the Tatra Mountains. Soon after graduating, Adam Łomnicki spent a few months at Oxford with one of the greatest ecologists of the time, Charles Elton. On his advice and under the supervision of prof. Roman Wojtusiak, he conducted his PhD thesis on the factors determining distribution of arachnids and coleopterans in the Tatra Mts. and graduated in 1961. His habilitation, completed in 1971, concerned the population ecology of Roman snails and led to very important conclusions on the effect of differences between individuals in population regulation (published in Nature). At that time, there was a crisis in environmental biology, caused by the contradictions between the principles of evolutionary theory and the existence of altruism and population regulation. An attempt to resolve these contradictions was Wynne Edwards' concept of group selection (1962), which, thanks, among others, to Łomnicki, turned out to be wrong. The concept of kin selection, put forward by W.D. Hamilton in 1964, of reciprocal altruism by Robert Trivers (1971) and models based on game theory by Maynard-Smith and Price (1973) resolved conflicts with behavioural biology, but it was Łomnicki's concept, based on mathematical models and supported by empirical studies showing the importance of individual variation in a population, that finally solved one of the most important problems of modern evolutionary biology and ecology – regulation of population numbers; Łomnicki's concept, presented in several publications, culminated in the book “Population ecology of Individuals” (Princeton University Press, 1988). Adam Łomnicki was not only a researcher, but also a master and teacher of a few generations of Polish evolutionary biologists and ecologists. With great enthusiasm he organized ecological seminars, national Schools of Mathematical Modeling in Biology (1975–1985), Evolutionary Biology Workshops (4 times a year in 1995–2012) later transformed into several-day international Polish Evolutionary Conferences. He was an excellent lecturer, and author or co-author of the most important Polish textbooks in the field of population ecology, evolutionary genetics and mathematical statistics for natural scientists. In 1981–1988 he was director of the Institute of Environmental Biology (now Institute of Environmental Sciences) of Jagiellonian University; during the dramatic change of political system in Poland, Łomnicki contributed to the modern organization of this institution and to the way of conducting university studies in modern Western style. Privately, he was very sociable, had a great sense of humor, was interested in history and skiing.