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Quote: "First, scientific knowledge advances most rapidly, and is of most value to society, not when its course is determined by the “free play of free intellec

by lutusp 10y ago

Quote: "First, scientific knowledge advances most rapidly, and is of most value to society, not when its course is determined by the “free play of free intellects” but when it is steered to solve problems." But the history of science boldly and flatly contradicts this claim. The most productive and society-reshaping products of science arise in pure, not applied, research. Quote: "Second, when science is not steered to solve such problems, it tends to go off half-cocked in ways that can be highly detrimental to science itself." Also contradicted by history. As just one example, the success of Bell Labs over the decades resulted, not from a focus on solving particular problems, but a focus on research for the sake of research -- pure science. The author of the article raises an alarm about a supposed scientific crisis, and eventually reveals what he thinks is the source of the problem -- a waste of scientific talent spent on pure research. He needs to read the history of science with an open mind. Quote: "It was military purchases that kept the new transistor, semiconductor, and integrated-circuit industries afloat in the early and mid-1950s." That's true, but it's misleading because the development of the transistor at Bell Labs wasn't an applied science project, it resulted from pure research in materials science and physics. The author isn't reporting on the state of science, he's complaining that it's not what he thinks it should be, in a way that stands at odds with science's history.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
amelius 10y ago
> The most productive and society-reshaping products of science arise in pure, not applied, research. Yes. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the researcher (or even the research team), pure research is a lottery, whereas applied research offers more chance to success.
- lutusp 10y ago
  > ... pure research is a lottery, whereas applied research offers more chance to success. That depends on how one defines success. Was Einstein successful? His work was pure research, and he was never financially successful, but his work resulted in a greater understanding of nature, a result we all share. Someone could argue that, because Einstein was never wealthy, therefore his work failed, but the defects in that argument are clear. From a political perspective, pure research funding is certainly a lottery, but that doesn't address the question of what kind of science produces most of our insights into nature. The answer is pure research.
yummyfajitas 10y ago
I think your claims require a bit more backing than mere assertion. Certainly, some of the most important research (now described as "pure") was done with applications immediately in mind. For example, Newtonian physics always had the goal of calculating artillery trajectories. Nuclear physics had the goals of energy/weapons. Probability theory, operations research, and most of our modern computational infrastructure came directly from people trying to do applied work. Nonlinear wave equations, to discuss a niche example I know well, are primarily motivated by applications in photonics. I'm very well aware of the many anecdotes of very pure research turning out to be useful later. But there are also a huge number of anecdotes of pure research being directly motivated by providing theoretical justification for/analysis of applied work. So I don't see any compelling reason to believe your unsupported assertions.
- ssivark 10y ago
  Here are a couple of examples: 1. Quantum mechanics was never motivated with the thought of semiconductors (therefore computing technology). If you were motivated by building a computer, you would never have discovered quantum mechanics. 2. Probability theory was "invented" to understand/solve gambling problems. Nobody anticipated how widely it would be used. When paradigm shifts occur, it takes a long time for the effects to percolate, before we can even get a feel for the space of possible applications. However, if resources (including smart people's time) are not spent laying the foundations, one could never have taken aim at the applications! If one is always chasing applications, who spends time and money on the preliminary legwork? At any point, if resources are directed through some small set of people who decide and enforce the directions to be pursued, then the outcomes will be more representative of their biases than reality. Those few people effectively act as a bottleneck for human ingenuity.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    First of all, quantum mechanics was motivated by the thought of semiconductors. One of the primary use cases of it was explaining the photoelectric effect [1]. Secondly, other primary motivations for QM were explaining and predicting chemical reactions, radiation sources, and nuclear energy. Secondly, probability and statistics - as you note - were invented to understand/solve gambling problems. Virtually every early advance was then made by people attempting to use it. These include Gauss predicting the orbit of Ceres, Graunt and Halley (yes, he also spotted Halley's comet) doing insurance, Galton and Pearson studying evolution and developing eugenics, and Gosset using statistics to brew better beer. Probability and statistics are perhaps the worst possible example of pure research that - purely by chance - happens to be useful later. [1] Interestingly, the classical belief that the photoelectric effect proves the quantization of light is wrong. The Schrodinger equation + continuous electromagnetic fields actually exhibit the photoelectric effect.
fuzzfactor 10y ago
Yup, IMHO you have a better grasp than the author. I've mainly built & developed labs for the analysis of very high-dollar materials, using the same advanced research equipment that the academics & industrial researchers occasionally have breakthroughs on themselves. I'm an extreme problem-solver, compared to most of the other operators of similar equipment, and more experienced. On my own, it can still be challenging to make a lab both profitable and sustainable. So you do exactly this, substituting commercial activities for "teaching & administrative duties": "You will need forty hours a week to perform teaching and administrative duties, another twenty hours on top of that to conduct respectable research, and still another twenty hours to accomplish really important research.... Make an important discovery, and you are a successful scientist in the true, elitist sense in a profession where elitism is practiced without shame.... Fail to discover, and you are little or nothing." It follows that even if you are not an anti-social person, you will need to take on some anti-social responsibilities. That little feature of natural science has not changed since Edison was alive. Once the money-making milestone has been reached however, technical problems occasionally still need to be addressed, sometimes requiring a higher rate of breakthroughs compared to institutional operators. After those emergency challenges are overcome, why not put the same effort into untapped areas that come to mind, which might be addressable using the uniquely developed features of the particular facility? In the right hands this can sometimes lead to more commercially-exploitable breakthroughs than the direct solution of commercial problems themselves. There is also quite an advantage when owning your own apparatus compared to working on institutionally owned gear. Either way, over the last few decades I have consistently tried to invalidate the following statement: "Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown." In that area I have completely failed. That simple concept just gets more validated every decade no matter how I try to find an alternative. It turns out, you take a true intellect who has the innate curiosity and chooses to explore that particular unknown, provision them with some applicable resources and allow them free play. In return you get more scientific progress for your money than any other way so far. It doesn't even always require "amazing powers of observation", just not below average like many professors or technical administrators.

by lutusp 10y ago

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

amelius 10y ago

> The most productive and society-reshaping products of science arise in pure, not applied, research. Yes. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the researcher (or even the research team), pure research is a lottery, whereas applied research offers more chance to success.

lutusp 10y ago
> ... pure research is a lottery, whereas applied research offers more chance to success. That depends on how one defines success. Was Einstein successful? His work was pure research, and he was never financially successful, but his work resulted in a greater understanding of nature, a result we all share. Someone could argue that, because Einstein was never wealthy, therefore his work failed, but the defects in that argument are clear. From a political perspective, pure research funding is certainly a lottery, but that doesn't address the question of what kind of science produces most of our insights into nature. The answer is pure research.

yummyfajitas 10y ago

I think your claims require a bit more backing than mere assertion. Certainly, some of the most important research (now described as "pure") was done with applications immediately in mind. For example, Newtonian physics always had the goal of calculating artillery trajectories. Nuclear physics had the goals of energy/weapons. Probability theory, operations research, and most of our modern computational infrastructure came directly from people trying to do applied work. Nonlinear wave equations, to discuss a niche example I know well, are primarily motivated by applications in photonics. I'm very well aware of the many anecdotes of very pure research turning out to be useful later. But there are also a huge number of anecdotes of pure research being directly motivated by providing theoretical justification for/analysis of applied work. So I don't see any compelling reason to believe your unsupported assertions.

ssivark 10y ago
Here are a couple of examples: 1. Quantum mechanics was never motivated with the thought of semiconductors (therefore computing technology). If you were motivated by building a computer, you would never have discovered quantum mechanics. 2. Probability theory was "invented" to understand/solve gambling problems. Nobody anticipated how widely it would be used. When paradigm shifts occur, it takes a long time for the effects to percolate, before we can even get a feel for the space of possible applications. However, if resources (including smart people's time) are not spent laying the foundations, one could never have taken aim at the applications! If one is always chasing applications, who spends time and money on the preliminary legwork? At any point, if resources are directed through some small set of people who decide and enforce the directions to be pursued, then the outcomes will be more representative of their biases than reality. Those few people effectively act as a bottleneck for human ingenuity.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  First of all, quantum mechanics was motivated by the thought of semiconductors. One of the primary use cases of it was explaining the photoelectric effect [1]. Secondly, other primary motivations for QM were explaining and predicting chemical reactions, radiation sources, and nuclear energy. Secondly, probability and statistics - as you note - were invented to understand/solve gambling problems. Virtually every early advance was then made by people attempting to use it. These include Gauss predicting the orbit of Ceres, Graunt and Halley (yes, he also spotted Halley's comet) doing insurance, Galton and Pearson studying evolution and developing eugenics, and Gosset using statistics to brew better beer. Probability and statistics are perhaps the worst possible example of pure research that - purely by chance - happens to be useful later. [1] Interestingly, the classical belief that the photoelectric effect proves the quantization of light is wrong. The Schrodinger equation + continuous electromagnetic fields actually exhibit the photoelectric effect.

fuzzfactor 10y ago

Yup, IMHO you have a better grasp than the author. I've mainly built & developed labs for the analysis of very high-dollar materials, using the same advanced research equipment that the academics & industrial researchers occasionally have breakthroughs on themselves. I'm an extreme problem-solver, compared to most of the other operators of similar equipment, and more experienced. On my own, it can still be challenging to make a lab both profitable and sustainable. So you do exactly this, substituting commercial activities for "teaching & administrative duties": "You will need forty hours a week to perform teaching and administrative duties, another twenty hours on top of that to conduct respectable research, and still another twenty hours to accomplish really important research.... Make an important discovery, and you are a successful scientist in the true, elitist sense in a profession where elitism is practiced without shame.... Fail to discover, and you are little or nothing." It follows that even if you are not an anti-social person, you will need to take on some anti-social responsibilities. That little feature of natural science has not changed since Edison was alive. Once the money-making milestone has been reached however, technical problems occasionally still need to be addressed, sometimes requiring a higher rate of breakthroughs compared to institutional operators. After those emergency challenges are overcome, why not put the same effort into untapped areas that come to mind, which might be addressable using the uniquely developed features of the particular facility? In the right hands this can sometimes lead to more commercially-exploitable breakthroughs than the direct solution of commercial problems themselves. There is also quite an advantage when owning your own apparatus compared to working on institutionally owned gear. Either way, over the last few decades I have consistently tried to invalidate the following statement: "Scientific progress on a broad front results from the free play of free intellects, working on subjects of their own choice, in the manner dictated by their curiosity for exploration of the unknown." In that area I have completely failed. That simple concept just gets more validated every decade no matter how I try to find an alternative. It turns out, you take a true intellect who has the innate curiosity and chooses to explore that particular unknown, provision them with some applicable resources and allow them free play. In return you get more scientific progress for your money than any other way so far. It doesn't even always require "amazing powers of observation", just not below average like many professors or technical administrators.