Re Is Science Hitting a Wall - it's not just about science

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

Begin forwarded message:

> From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
> Date: April 8, 2018 at 1:17:57 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net, "     'ip'" <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Re Is Science Hitting a Wall - it's not just about science
>
> It’s not just about science – it’s about public policy in general. Here to the tendency is for more of the same only 
> faster or bigger.
> Today the focus is on faster and faster pipes as per the old measures (more “broadband”). But that is not what makes 
> the Internet so transformation. As in the example of physical goods, it doesn’t take many bits to “move” an object. 
> This is a problem in healthcare where it doesn’t take many bits to report vital signs. Instead we get high glitz 
> (often fanciful) applications used to justify fatter pipes.
>  
> Traditional pipe monetization model works against enabling Ambient Connectivity. As a result innovative applications 
> are blocked by the providers’ paywalls. Trying to work around this by having providers monetizing our data shows the 
> danger of constraining our thinking by applying old measures and maximizing the value of the center even as 
> intelligence moves to the source (AKA the edge).
>  
>  
> From: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> 
> Sent: Sunday, April 8, 2018 00:47
> To: ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: [IP] Re Is Science Hitting a Wall?
>  
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0501 () bobf frankston com>
> Date: April 7, 2018 at 10:39:18 PM EDT
> To: dave () farber net, " 'ip'" <ip () listbox com>
> Cc: "'John Horgan'" <jhorgan () stevens edu>
> Subject: RE: [IP] Is Science Hitting a Wall?
>
> I agree – beware of economists carrying old measures. Too bad there is an attitude that research should be produce a 
> measurable result rather than appreciating failure is the norm and the few success make up for it.
>  
> The Moore’s law question is what inspired me to write https://rmf.vc/BeyondLimits 20 years ago. The problem is 
> typically in the measures as old veins get tapped out and we need new ways of thinking, new paradigms, for fresh 
> measures.
>  
> We tend to think of science and innovation as a path of looking for solutions. I argue that the reality is more 
> looking back and finding what solutions are already available. The standard history of the Internet is about 
> progressive improvement of telecom when it was more about discovering the power of best efforts which was a complete 
> break from the tradition of carrying meaning messages.
>  
> To use another example – transport of goods by runners hasn’t improved that much in thousands of years. We did get a 
> huge boost in transporting packages by air. But in order to appreciate the change in transport you have to forget 
> about transporting physical goods and recognize that in many cases we don’t have to move goods at all. We just ship 
> the part number and the goods ship from a nearby store. But that instantaneous transfer of goods is cheating by old 
> measures.
>  
> Bob Frankston
> http://Frankston.com
> @BobFrankston
>  
>  
>  
> From: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com> 
> Sent: Saturday, April 7, 2018 17:44
> To: ip <ip () listbox com>
> Subject: [IP] Is Science Hitting a Wall?
>  
>
>
>
> Begin forwarded message:
>
> From: John Horgan <jhorgan () stevens edu>
> Date: April 7, 2018 at 5:20:24 PM EDT
> To: Dave Farber <farber () gmail com>
> Cc: John Horgan <jhorgan () stevens edu>
> Subject: Is Science Hitting a Wall?
>
> Dave, thought your list might finding this interesting. John
>
>  
>
> Is Science Hitting a Wall?
>
> Economists show that increased research efforts are yielding decreasing returns.
>
>  
>
> Once again, I’m brooding over science’s limits. I recently posted Q&As with three physicists with strong opinions on 
> the topic--David Deutsch, Marcelo Gleiser and Martin Rees--as well as this column: “Is Science Infinite?” Then in 
> March I attended a two-day brainstorming session--which I’ll call “The Session”--with 20 or so science-y folks over 
> whether science is slowing down and what we can do about it.
>
>  
>
> The Session was inspired in part by research suggesting that scientific progress is stagnating. In “Are Ideas Getting 
> Harder to Find?”, four economists claim that “a wide range of evidence from various industries, products, and firms 
> show[s] that research effort is rising substantially while research productivity is declining sharply.” The 
> economists are Nicholas Bloom, Charles Jones and Michael Webb, all from Stanford, and John Van Reenen of MIT.
>
>  
>
> As an counter-intuitive example, they cite Moore’s Law, noting that the “number of researchers required today to 
> achieve the famous doubling every two years of the density of computer chips is more than 18 times larger than the 
> number required in the early 1970s.” The researchers found similar trends in research related to agriculture and 
> medicine. More and more research on cancer and other illnesses has produced fewer and fewer lives saved....
>
> ​ 
>
> Continue reading at
>
> https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-science-hitting-a-wall/
>
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