America, we’ve got a problem. We like to think of ourselves as a hotbed of scientific and technological innovation. But our rate of discovery … may be slowing. So, what happened? And what can we do about it?
One part of the puzzle could be that we’re looking for scientific discoveries in the wrong places. Many of the innovations that transform society don’t actually come from scientists trying to solve immediate, specific problems. They come from scientists who are trying to solve abstract, seemingly obscure problems.
In the 1840s, the English mathematician George Boole was trying to use mathematics to build on Aristotle’s ideas about logic. Long story short: Without Boole’s work … no computers.
Your GPS system? It doesn’t exist without Einstein’s theory of relativity.
This kind of curiosity-driven research is known as “basic science” and, despite its transformational potential, we probably don’t do enough of it. Basic science relies more on funding from the government rather than private companies. But in recent decades, the share of federal R&D funding that goes to basic science has actually been shrinking.
Even if we increase funding, there may be another problem at work too. Scientists are judged by how often their work is cited by other scientists. As a result, scientists will often gravitate to practical fields where citations are easier to come by rather than truly pathbreaking ones.
So, the bad news: We may have lost a bit of our edge. But the good news: There are clear steps to get it back.
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