Technological evolution has a momentum of its own
wsj.com
wsj.com
But the old [BBC Connections](1) series brings home the inevitability of technical and scientific progress in amazing ways, such as how the introduction of the concept of bank credit led to refrigeration and the space shuttle. One innovation does inevitably beget another. Very much worth watching the whole series.
In the second half he does get to the premise in the title, and he gives it some support ... but he has very few cards to play. Yes, sometimes scientists get caught in an ivory bottle for too long. But sometimes practitioners play "poke and hope" for too long.
Furthermore, without individuals who are largely interested in knowledge discovery, I maintain that progress would be slower. Someone had to desire to understand cells and know about x-ray crystallography in order for it to be applied. I picked on this example because it was brought up in the article. But, by the same token, people interested largely in technological improvement are also needed. It takes a lot to move a discovery from a lab notebook into a useful state.
I also categorically reject the notion of technology being a thing unto itself that perpetuates itself. Humanity is the engine of innovation and no amount of innovation is likely to change that any time soon. All technology and all machines are ultimately at the service of humans. We are not in the service of the machine. We are dependent upon our machines but are machines are not free from us. This is why post-apocalyptic stories of AI destroying humanity remain popular. We are uncomfortable and fearful of our own dependence.
The fear of both scientists and corporations is we fundamentally do not know what the world looks like without government involvement. There is no roadmap for a transition. There is no telling who would win and who would lose. In the past several decades major research institutions both public and private have all had shrinking "time-horizons" for their research. The time-horizon is when the research (if fruitful) could result in technological advancement. In the short term a transition to industry funded research would only accelerate that trend.
In conclusion, science funding and science in general is deeply dysfunctional right now. A lot of time is spent of obtaining and keeping funding. Our funding system has likely caused a over supply of entry level researchers which has fueled low wages. But at the same time, we do not know of a better way to fund research at the moment. If non-governmental funding is better there is no real way to try it that won't cause massive structural unemployment and pain throughout our economy. As much as I would love to see the scientists I know receive good wages for their important work I think it is about as likely as properly paying pre-school teachers.
Please comment only if you have something substantive to say. If you think the article is unredeemably bad, you can always flag it, but don't degrade the thread with empty dismissals.
(Btw, author usually don't write the headlines, so it's good to give them the benefit of the doubt on that.)
I don't mind you changing it but I'm not surprised you're getting some pushback.
That's a high-risk proposition. Most often it just produces ragefests and ends up equivalent to trolling.
Fortunately several HN commenters have already posted thoughtful critiques of the article, which is likely enough to make for a high-quality thread. That was by no means guaranteed, though. Threads are sensitive to their initial conditions, i.e. the title and first comments.
Without science providing the explanation how all the fancy technology works, inventors would be blind and deaf.
For example - how can you make an accurate GPS without understanding relativity? How one can make a CPU without science of solid state physics? A computer network without information theory?
The better explanation would that fundamental science research gives a foundation for the future progress, in both applied science and technology. Those next steps can happen sometimes much, much later so the science behind it appears to be disconnected or a completely mundane knowledge by that time.
Yes, several people invented light bulbs. When something is a good idea many people will see that and produce variations on it. But that doesn't mean you can factor out initiative and individual genius. It just means that lots of people possess those virtues and that sometimes great minds do think alike.
The author of this piece seems to want to abstract us all into a giant seething heap of flesh whose writhing produces some kind of inexorable motion like the way molecules banging around produce pressure from a confined gas. I don't think it follows.
Elsewhere someone wrote that this seems to be a British political hit piece on science funding. Figures.
> Does scientific research drive innovation?
This is so obvious that it becomes stupid. Of course it does, there's a lot of research that had to occur before most innovations in history, and most of it was not lucrative by itself.
But then, there's something to be said about bottlenecks. Basic research has been far ahead actual production for a long while. As a consequence, one will really not see any correlation between them.
For example, Watt and friends improved steam engines, and only later formal thermodynamics was invented to explain why and how steam engines work. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution)
You'll see a similar effect with the agricultural revolution. We know now that legumes like clover provide nitrogen for the soil. But that's way after people figured out it was a good idea. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revolutio...)
You're just making a blanket statement with out providing a detailed supporting narative.
For example: you mention agricultural production - What is the comparative improvement achieved in 3000 years of say Human agrarian trial and error vs. what was made possible by Gregor Mandel (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel) and Modern genetics in the 20th century?
Science is awesome---but I don't see how even if the improvements since 1900 would dwarf any improvements before would have any bearing on my argument that `throughout most history, the causation was reversed.' Those are two completely independent observations.
In any case, it might be instructive to look at "Productivity improving technologies" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productivity_improving_technol...) and see how they enabled science vs were enabled by science.
Containerization of sea trade is one of my favourite topics there. It's a huge productivity improver----but science played little role in its introduction and success.
On the other hand, the Green Revolution is an example for the successful application of science to technology. Also, the Haber-Bosch-Process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Haber_process). Many of us wouldn't be alive today if not for these two developments.
As an aside on Mendel: his data looks too good on some measures. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Mendel#Controversy)
> technology is self-organizing and can, in effect, reproduce and adapt to its environment. It thus qualifies as a living organism, at least in the sense that a coral reef is a living thing.
This piece is essentially just a hodge-podge of quotes by various sources which are intended to vaguely support the headline of the article and in no way actually addresses the tie between research results in science and technological innovation.
If you want to read more worthless fluff (the not-at-all pompously titled book is available in a book store near you):
> Mr. Ridley is the author of “The Evolution of Everything: How New Ideas Emerge,”
According to the author we don't need any tax-payer funded research. Just leave the market to do its thing and Science will take care of itself! Short-term thinking; that's the ticket! eh?? eh??
Cripes.