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I find this article preposterous. >While understandable, the evidence is that science has slowed enormously per dollar or hour spent. The only evidence for th

I find this article preposterous. >While understandable, the evidence is that science has slowed enormously per dollar or hour spent. The only evidence for this is Nobel Prizes won, split up by decade, and polled!? Biology, arguably one of the most exciting fields right now, doesn't even get considered in the Nobel Prizes! You can get a Nobel Prize in medicine/physiology for biology-related efforts (see GFP), but there's no Nobel Prize for plant-related biology (that's what the Kyoto medal is for, which isn't mentioned here?!?) I can't wait for science-illiterate politicians to take this ('Look at what YCombinator is saying!') and say we should defund science. It has never been as hard to get funding for your science as now - see e.g. https://theconversation.com/with-federal-funding-for-science-on-the-decline-whats-the-role-of-a-profit-motive-in-research-93322 https://theconversation.com/with-federal-funding-for-science... - with huge issues (scientists living in precarious circumstances, ridiculously low salaries, attacks and defunding by conservative governments (US, Australia, Harper government in Canada) - writing an article now saying that science is stagnant is foolish at best, dangerous at worst. >Over the past century we’ve vastly increased the time and money invested in science, but in scientists’ own judgement we’re producing the most important breakthroughs at a near-constant rate. On a per-dollar or per-person basis, this suggests that science is becoming far less efficient. A much simpler explanation is that we've picked the low-hanging fruits (think of how diverse the work of Darwin was! He picked up novel fossils literally on beach walks), now (especially in physics!) we need bigger and stronger efforts to go for the harder fruits.

CompelTechnic 8y ago
>>Over the past century we’ve vastly increased the time and money invested in science, but in scientists’ own judgement we’re producing the most important breakthroughs at a near-constant rate. On a per-dollar or per-person basis, this suggests that science is becoming far less efficient. >A much simpler explanation is that we've picked the low-hanging fruits (think of how diverse the work of Darwin was! He picked up novel fossils literally on beach walks), now (especially in physics!) we need bigger and stronger efforts to go for the harder fruits. Your explanation that we have picked the low-hanging fruits is not mutually exclusive with the increased time and money invested in science. They would even be two sides of the same coin- as the easy pickings disappeared, we chose to invest more to get the harder fruits. As the trend continues, the search space for novel, useful discoveries becomes larger and larger, and the cost increases. How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it?
- a_bonobo 8y ago
  >How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it? I don't think that's possible. The history of science is full of science that shouldn't have worked but did - think of Barry Marshall drinking Helicobacter pylori, which no-one thought to be a causative agent, or think of Norman Borlaug, who came up with shuttle breeding (grow a plant twice a year by driving seeds around, at a time when people thought that you have to let the seeds rest for a while) - but the history of science is also full of things that should have worked but didn't, we just don't hear about those (classic survivor bias). In some cases, you can tell whether an experiment is going to work and how it's important, especially if it's incremental work - in some cases, you simply cannot predict. Just think of how delighted G. H. Hardy was that his mathematics was kind of useless to the general public, and how useful his work is nowadays (most importantly the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium I guess?), he could not have predicted how that works out! What would he have written into his application for funding?
- nonbel 8y ago
  >"How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it?" You* need to make surprising predictions and perform astounding feats that pretty much anyone can verify for themselves. This is an old problem: http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Syracusia.html http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Syracusia... *By "you" I mean at least people associated with you or your ideas.
- iamcurious 8y ago
  > How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it? You vote someone who is already convinced of it.
nonbel 8y ago
>"(scientists living in precarious circumstances, ridiculously low salaries)" The problem is the funding is constrained by the average productivity of the researchers. Too many crappy researchers have been allowed into the club (see my NHST post above) who are pulling down the average. Adding more money isn't really going to help. Actually less money may drive some of those people away for a generation and increase the total productivity. More productivity from fewer people -> higher salaries.
aaavl2821 8y ago
One reasonable way to look at the "bang for the buck" invested in biomedicine is to look at r&d productivity of the pharma industry. Pharma spends more on r&d than publicly funded research, and innovations in academic research typically trickle down to pharma By most estimations, productivity of biomedical research is decreasing. Some estimate it is decreasing exponentially One explanation is the low hanging fruits model, but I prefer an explanation that combines the low hanging fruit model (that we rapidly exploit the most obvious applications of a new tech) with a "punctuated equilibrium" perspective of innovation -- that every so often, we get a new breakthrough that opens up a whole new space to play in. Maybe gene editing, gene therapy, cell therapy, the microbiome will have that impact today
- jimjansen1 8y ago
  Not sure they're the best example since they almost exclusively target disease whose treatment would be profitable. It's possible that many new drugs could be more easily developed for less profitable diseases but there is no incentive to do this.
Thrymr 8y ago
> The only evidence for this is Nobel Prizes won, split up by decade, and polled!? Biology, arguably one of the most exciting fields right now, doesn't even get considered in the Nobel Prizes! You can get a Nobel Prize in medicine/physiology for biology-related efforts (see GFP), but there's no Nobel Prize for plant-related biology (that's what the Kyoto medal is for, which isn't mentioned here?!?) It's also a metric that lags by decades, the authors say that "This is too few to get a good quality estimate for the 1990s, and so we didn’t survey those prizes." So even if this metric is useful, it is measuring what was going on in academia through the 1980s.
raverbashing 8y ago
> but there's no Nobel Prize for plant-related biology (that's what the Kyoto medal is for, which isn't mentioned here?!?) Well, plant-related biology is something specific, but I guess that if it is a big breakthrough it is a strong candidate for the Chemistry Nobel In the same way there is no Math Nobel, but there's the Fields medal. Nobel is not all there is to science.
- mturmon 8y ago
  Yes, the point of the parent comment is exactly this: Nobel prize A/B comparisons by extant professors is a rather ridiculous metric for overall science progress.
khawkins 8y ago
>I can't wait for science-illiterate politicians to take this ('Look at what YCombinator is saying!') and say we should defund science. This is an extremely hyperbolic thing to say. While I don't think that in this economy spending levels for science need to be decreased, reducing spending won't be "dangerous". I don't even know what "threat" you're imagining is so important that reducing science spending is necessary. This article is actually spot on, from my and my partner's experiences in PhD programs. The field is saturated with people and everyone is trying to stake their claim. Pressure is high not to get scooped, frontiers are small and hard to find, and most progress is very small increments which take lots of time and funding to accomplish. I think the money is fine, but the number of PhDs awarded needs to decrease. Important discoveries nowadays take lots of time and very dedicated people, but the system is set up to incentivize quickly nabbing low hanging fruit. It's rare that I attend a PhD defense where the contribution is anything but a baby step forward.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

CompelTechnic 8y ago

>>Over the past century we’ve vastly increased the time and money invested in science, but in scientists’ own judgement we’re producing the most important breakthroughs at a near-constant rate. On a per-dollar or per-person basis, this suggests that science is becoming far less efficient. >A much simpler explanation is that we've picked the low-hanging fruits (think of how diverse the work of Darwin was! He picked up novel fossils literally on beach walks), now (especially in physics!) we need bigger and stronger efforts to go for the harder fruits. Your explanation that we have picked the low-hanging fruits is not mutually exclusive with the increased time and money invested in science. They would even be two sides of the same coin- as the easy pickings disappeared, we chose to invest more to get the harder fruits. As the trend continues, the search space for novel, useful discoveries becomes larger and larger, and the cost increases. How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it?

a_bonobo 8y ago
>How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it? I don't think that's possible. The history of science is full of science that shouldn't have worked but did - think of Barry Marshall drinking Helicobacter pylori, which no-one thought to be a causative agent, or think of Norman Borlaug, who came up with shuttle breeding (grow a plant twice a year by driving seeds around, at a time when people thought that you have to let the seeds rest for a while) - but the history of science is also full of things that should have worked but didn't, we just don't hear about those (classic survivor bias). In some cases, you can tell whether an experiment is going to work and how it's important, especially if it's incremental work - in some cases, you simply cannot predict. Just think of how delighted G. H. Hardy was that his mathematics was kind of useless to the general public, and how useful his work is nowadays (most importantly the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium I guess?), he could not have predicted how that works out! What would he have written into his application for funding?
nonbel 8y ago
>"How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it?" You* need to make surprising predictions and perform astounding feats that pretty much anyone can verify for themselves. This is an old problem: http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Syracusia.html http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Greece/Technology/en/Syracusia... *By "you" I mean at least people associated with you or your ideas.
iamcurious 8y ago
> How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it? You vote someone who is already convinced of it.

nonbel 8y ago

>"(scientists living in precarious circumstances, ridiculously low salaries)" The problem is the funding is constrained by the average productivity of the researchers. Too many crappy researchers have been allowed into the club (see my NHST post above) who are pulling down the average. Adding more money isn't really going to help. Actually less money may drive some of those people away for a generation and increase the total productivity. More productivity from fewer people -> higher salaries.

aaavl2821 8y ago

One reasonable way to look at the "bang for the buck" invested in biomedicine is to look at r&d productivity of the pharma industry. Pharma spends more on r&d than publicly funded research, and innovations in academic research typically trickle down to pharma By most estimations, productivity of biomedical research is decreasing. Some estimate it is decreasing exponentially One explanation is the low hanging fruits model, but I prefer an explanation that combines the low hanging fruit model (that we rapidly exploit the most obvious applications of a new tech) with a "punctuated equilibrium" perspective of innovation -- that every so often, we get a new breakthrough that opens up a whole new space to play in. Maybe gene editing, gene therapy, cell therapy, the microbiome will have that impact today

jimjansen1 8y ago
Not sure they're the best example since they almost exclusively target disease whose treatment would be profitable. It's possible that many new drugs could be more easily developed for less profitable diseases but there is no incentive to do this.

Thrymr 8y ago

> The only evidence for this is Nobel Prizes won, split up by decade, and polled!? Biology, arguably one of the most exciting fields right now, doesn't even get considered in the Nobel Prizes! You can get a Nobel Prize in medicine/physiology for biology-related efforts (see GFP), but there's no Nobel Prize for plant-related biology (that's what the Kyoto medal is for, which isn't mentioned here?!?) It's also a metric that lags by decades, the authors say that "This is too few to get a good quality estimate for the 1990s, and so we didn’t survey those prizes." So even if this metric is useful, it is measuring what was going on in academia through the 1980s.

raverbashing 8y ago

> but there's no Nobel Prize for plant-related biology (that's what the Kyoto medal is for, which isn't mentioned here?!?) Well, plant-related biology is something specific, but I guess that if it is a big breakthrough it is a strong candidate for the Chemistry Nobel In the same way there is no Math Nobel, but there's the Fields medal. Nobel is not all there is to science.

mturmon 8y ago
Yes, the point of the parent comment is exactly this: Nobel prize A/B comparisons by extant professors is a rather ridiculous metric for overall science progress.

khawkins 8y ago

>I can't wait for science-illiterate politicians to take this ('Look at what YCombinator is saying!') and say we should defund science. This is an extremely hyperbolic thing to say. While I don't think that in this economy spending levels for science need to be decreased, reducing spending won't be "dangerous". I don't even know what "threat" you're imagining is so important that reducing science spending is necessary. This article is actually spot on, from my and my partner's experiences in PhD programs. The field is saturated with people and everyone is trying to stake their claim. Pressure is high not to get scooped, frontiers are small and hard to find, and most progress is very small increments which take lots of time and funding to accomplish. I think the money is fine, but the number of PhDs awarded needs to decrease. Important discoveries nowadays take lots of time and very dedicated people, but the system is set up to incentivize quickly nabbing low hanging fruit. It's rare that I attend a PhD defense where the contribution is anything but a baby step forward.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]