And what does this have to do with mechanization?

…nothing evokes as much hostility among intellectuals as the suggestion that social forces influence or even dictate either the scientific method or the facts and theories of science.

(Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, The Dialectical Biologist)

Last October 24 I unexpectedly received the following message from an extremely eminent colleague who had been invited to join the brand new Association for Mathematical Research, an organization of whose existence I had been unaware until then:

the thing that puzzles me is why do we need a new Society devoted to research? Especially since its mission statement is just: ‘research.’  I’m already a member  of a number of them.  Is there a subtext I’m not getting here? 

Continued at Silicon Reckoner. Comments welcome here, as always.