
Saving Science - Hooke
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/saving-science
======
lutusp
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.

~~~
yummyfajitas
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
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
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.

~~~
ssivark
Claiming that quantum mechanics (QM) was motivated by semiconductors is
bordering on discussing in bad faith.

A glance at [1] will show that people were thinking about issues leading up to
QM for several decades. Planck's equation relating energy to frequency of
light (in several ways the first "quantum" idea that conceived what we today
call Planck's constant) was motivated by understanding the "ultraviolet
catastrophe" [2] (which was a purely "theoretical" endeavour as some would
call it today). Planck's work preceeded Einstein's explanation of the
photoelectric effect by several years. Even when the photoelectric effect was
observed, it was first noticed in zinc (IIRC); it was only in the 1930s that
QM was applied to understand the functioning of semiconductors.

 _You are confusing all the things we use QM for today with all the reasons
for which it was first conceived._ Moany of those reasons of course spurred
development in QM _after it was conceived_ \-- but none of those motivations
would have conceived QM.

With regards to your comment on the development of probability:

There was always a reason/purpose something was conceived. So claiming that it
was "motivated by applications" is tautological. _The relevant question to ask
is whether the applications today are different from the original
motivations._ If they are, then frankly, it doesn't matter what the original
motivations were... the idea would have been difficult to conceive starting
with the eventual application in mind. Eg: Without an understanding of
probability, linear algebra and differential equations, there would have been
no quantum mechanics. Somebody observing the photoelectric effect could not
have developed those tools for their "application".

I notice your other comment on the thread (OP) talks in analogy with physical
training. IMHO, such an analogy is misguided for endeavours which cannot be
reasonably well specified so as to be manageable (in that it can be managed,
with the goal in mind). Basic research is often not amenable to that because
it has tons of unknown unknowns [3].

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quantum_mechanics](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_quantum_mechanics)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultraviolet_catastrophe)

[3]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_are_known_knowns)

~~~
yummyfajitas
The photoelectric effect was first discovered in silver chloride solution. I
don't know that much about the energy bands of silver chloride, so I won't
comment about whether that was a semiconductor. (I also know very little about
liquids, basically all the physics I did happened in semiconductors.)

The first solid state demonstration was in selenium, which is a semiconductor.
This is what I was thinking of when I said that the photoelectric effect was
semiconductor physics.

[http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/manufacturing/first-
photo...](http://www.pveducation.org/pvcdrom/manufacturing/first-photovoltaic-
devices)

 _The relevant question to ask is whether the applications today are different
from the original motivations. If they are, then frankly, it doesn 't matter
what the original motivations were... the idea would have been difficult to
conceive starting with the eventual application in mind._

You are defining "pure" in a far more expansive way than the article does.
Your definition is actually so broad that it doesn't contradict the article at
all.

The article claims that science, with the goal of building cool military
applications (or presumably life tables or brewing beer) will work better than
curiosity driven applications. Then it claims the fruits of those labors will
be useful elsewhere. Now you seem to be agreeing with this, or at least not
disagreeing.

Note that the article isn't saying "don't figure out fundamental physics".
It's saying "go build a giant wall of ice to keep the mexicans out and a
better understanding of pure thermodynamics will be one output of that
project."

Also note that I'm not arguing _for_ the premise of the article, necessarily.
I'm simply arguing that it can't be casually dismissed without even an
argument. My analogy is meant to be suggestive, not to prove the point.

~~~
lutusp
> The photoelectric effect was first discovered in silver chloride solution. I
> don't know that much about the energy bands of silver chloride, so I won't
> comment about whether that was a semiconductor.

Had the first example of the photoelectric effect originated in a
semiconductor, that cannot be used to argue that the research was motivated by
the goal of practical application. By that reasoning, the fact that particle
physics is about atoms, and that atoms can be used to make weapons, could be
used to construct an absurd argument that all research that involves atoms has
the ultimate goal of designing weapons.

> The article claims that science, with the goal of building cool military
> applications (or presumably life tables or brewing beer) will work better
> than curiosity driven applications.

The phrase "curiosity driven applications" assumes what it should be proving.
Not all curiosity into nature has application in mind, indeed that's not now
pure research is defined.

> You are defining "pure" in a far more expansive way than the article does.

Pure research is research meant to discover properties of nature, without any
concern for practical application. That's hardly worth discussing as though
there's any controversy about the definition.

------
simonh
The article calls this a lie:

"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."

'On a broad front' I think that's probably correct. If you have specific goals
you want to achieve, sure you should probably direct research at that goal to
have the best chance of achieving it. But if you are more interested in
exploring the wild frontiers of science, less directed efforts are the way to
go. Of course in reality we want to do both, but the article offers no such
grounded perspective.

Anyway, who is being lied to and to what goal? Is anyone really fool enough to
think that all of US science spending has been purely provided to scientists
free of all strings? Has there really been an actual coordinated effort to
persuade anyone that this is true?

I read Bush's statement as an aspiration, not really a statement of
incontrovertible fact. Can aspirations be lies? Is there some terrible
conspiracy afoot? This pudding is being very heavily over-egged.

The latter part of the article is a cogent and reasonable criticism of some of
the problems in modern science. There's a lot of house cleaning that needs to
be done. But that cause is not well served by dour, grandiosely pronounced,
clickbaity conspiracy mongering.

~~~
helthanatos
I would call this article quite full of speculation. Why did it have to be so
long without a proper introduction or abstract?

------
yummyfajitas
The best way to get a human into good physical shape is to prepare them for a
fight. I've never been in better shape than when I was boxing - I was strong,
I was fast, my cardio was great. In theory, nowadays I should be in better
shape. Rather than focusing my time on bag work, drills, footwork, etc, I
could be focusing on fitness. Yet in reality I'm nowhere near my fighting
peak. I can do a lot of pullups, but I doubt I could crank out more than 20
burpees right now.

The reason for this is that I've lost my focus: if my cardio sucks, the result
is no longer _getting punched in the face_.

It's an interesting hypothesis, and one that should not be dismissed out of
hand, that societies behave in the same way. Think about our modern malaise -
we have no grand projects, particularly in the public sector. All we do is
funnel money in the general direction of something we like - nondeterministic
optimism, in Peter Thiel's language.

Consider California high speed rail, supported by both the president and
governor of CA. 8 years later lots of money has been spent but no track has
been laid [1]. Would 8 years of delay on a vital project be acceptable to a
nation preparing for war? I suspect not.

[1] There is no technological barrier here. The Qinhuangdao–Shenyang high
speed rail - 250 miles long - was built in 4 years.

~~~
lmm
> Think about our modern malaise - we have no grand projects, particularly in
> the public sector.

Interestingly I've heard that in economic return-on-investment terms grand
projects are almost always failures.

> [1] There is no technological barrier here. The Qinhuangdao–Shenyang high
> speed rail - 250 miles long - was built in 4 years.

The barriers are other than technological, sure - I don't know about
California, but the things delaying the next high-speed rail line in my own
country are court cases, appeals, and political disputes over matters like:
some houses need to be demolished to build the stations; the line might
disturb the ecology of some wetlands, the line will make a naturally beautiful
area less so. Along with some analysis-paralysis issues (is this the best use
of public funds? The model for the original analysis was wrong! Will the line
still be in the right place by the time it's built?)

I suspect China, or a hypothetical America-at-war (or even America-at-cold-
war), would not worry about the first category, and would take higher risks on
the second. We've become a lot more risk-averse as a society, sure. I'm not
convinced that this isn't simply a rational response to a safer world, where
most citizens, on the whole, enjoy a pretty good life. Risking a few deaths
and some blighted regions for the sake of a bit more growth makes more sense
the poorer you are.

------
acscott
Didn't even see a mention of what science really is. I bet you many
"scientists" don't know (pun intended) and couldn't tell you what science is.

Knowing an experiment or observation is not repeatable _is_ knowledge that
_can be_ useful. What are the causes of non-repeatability? That's even more
useful to know.

The observation and experimentation processes of science may be reflexive and
would be worth investigating.

The money spent on "science" has created ecosystems where the novel,
accidental discovery might be more likely.

The claim that "science" is self-correcting must be supported by evidence.

Finally, the media reporting of science does injustice to scientists by making
claims not put forth in publications so frequently, that you are wise to
disregard any media reporting of the science, and must go to the paper itself.

