Re Is Science Hitting a Wall?

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Douglas Comer <comer () cs purdue edu>
> Date: April 8, 2018 at 12:03:07 PM EDT
> To: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com>
> Subject: Re: [IP] Re Is Science Hitting a Wall?
>
> Let’s not confuse science and short-term economic benefits.  Sometimes a scientific discovery does indeed spark lots 
> of economic development because it has immediate practical benefits — when the discovery is announced, it is easy to 
> imagine how it can be used for exciting new products and services.  In many ways, for example, the entire high-tech 
> industry has been been living off solid-state physics discoveries at Bell Labs.  Once the transistor was discovered, 
> the practical benefits were obvious.  Yes, engineering and additional investigation have led to many refinements, but 
> everything followed from the  fundamental discovery .  Unfortunately, we cannot expect science to have economic 
> payoff on a schedule.  Bell Labs understood the idea: fund fundamental work for the long term, expecting most 
> investigations to have no immediate payoff, but expecting that every so often, a startling discovery will occur that 
> will have major impact.
>
> Part of the misunderstanding about science comes from universities.  Business schools now teach that the Bell Labs 
> model was terribly flawed because the company didn’t get a ROI from each project.  They teach that you can make money 
> without the costs and risks of fundamental research. They point to Silicon Valley as a good model, without 
> understanding that Silicon Valley is merely the beneficiary of earlier investment in science.  The assumption has 
> invaded many Colleges of Science and Engineering, which are shifting emphasis to startups.  At many schools, for 
> example,  incoming  graduate students are told that they should think about how to commercialize everything they 
> learn.  Unfortunately, placing emphasize on short-term profits has a terrible effect on universities.  Instead of 
> investigating wild, new ideas, the startup culture pushes university researchers toward products and marketing — 
> start with a small, incremental idea, create a catchy name, and predict giant economic impact. Students end up making 
> outrageous claims that match the culture of Silicon Valley much better than the university of fifty years ago.  It 
> isn’t science, but instead the strategy of emphasizing startups that is hitting a wall.  Thousands of graduating 
> students are all trying to create products without any really revolutionary ideas.
>
> Doug



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