A topic that shows up frequently in the comments here is a plea for more spending on research, sometimes framed as a lament, sometimes as a question. An article at Scientific American may provide an answer to the question. The reason we don’t spend more on research is that we’re getting decreasing returns:
The Session was inspired in part by research suggesting that scientific progress is stagnating. In “Are Ideas Getting Harder to Find?â€, 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 of 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.
As I’ve said before, we’ve picked the low-hanging fruit, indeed, we picked it a long time ago (the transistor is 70 years old). That doesn’t mean that there isn’t more to learn. It means that it will cost a lot more (note: the universe is not linear) and may not be worth it.
I think we need better research, not more. Most research is, frankly, crap that can’t be reproduced by independent third parties.
Getting better research requires changing the incentives for those in research-related professions. Throwing money at the existing system will just be more GIGO.
From Dwight Eisenhower’s Farewell Address:
“Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.
In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government.
Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been overshadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.
The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
By Jove, Roy, I think you nailed it.
Someone has claimed that there have been no major technological breakthroughs (as opposed to advances in basic science) since the 1970’s. I think that is true of my field (environmental engineering). I think its true of computers, too. Desktops and lap tops are smaller but no faster than they were 5 to 10 years ago. There have been developments in AI, and certainly biology has been in a golden age, especially with the advent of cheap, fast DNA sequencing.
There also may be a long term trend for declining mean IQ’s. Much of this is based on reaction times (which correlate negatively with IQ) that have been measured since the late 19th Century. But there is some evidence for it from DNA sequencing for IQ related genes:
https://www.sciencealert.com/natural-selection-is-making-human-education-genes-rarer-say-scientists
The declination rate is something like 0.3 to 1 IQ points per decade, one full standard deviation since 1900 or so.
The Millenials cannot read or write cursive, do very little voluntary reading, cannot do pencil-and-paper arithmetic, are (from my experience as a college teacher) lazy and not a little dishonest, and mostly delusional and superstitious about how the whole works. Only two-thirds of them are convinced the Earth is round, and don’t ask about evolution. Most of them are well-mannered.
People like Kurzweil keep talking about the coming singularity, but that assumes continued technological development and a population that is capable of sustaining a high-technology civilization. Africans can’t. Most Indians (the dot) can’t, most Latin Americans can’t. So new American immigrants can’t. So why the optimism about our civilization’s future?
Just need a breakthrough or two.
Steve