I think science can be moved forward by a variety of things. Novel hypotheses is one way. Novel observations is another. Novel tools or technology that enable novel observations is another.
We’ve picked a lot of the long hanging fruit in novel tools for many research areas. A multimillion dollar laser microscope is a hard bar to beat in biology. CERN is a hard bar to beat in physics. James Webb telescope recently upstaged Hubble, and the result was a rapid surge in exciting new astronomy papers fueled by the new observations enabled by this new tool.
So I don’t disagree that the lame incentives for predictable incremental grant proposals are part of the problem, but I’m also pretty confident that that isn’t the main source of the slowing of scientific progress.
I think science can be moved forward by a variety of things. Novel hypotheses is one way. Novel observations is another. Novel tools or technology that enable novel observations is another.
We’ve picked a lot of the long hanging fruit in novel tools for many research areas. A multimillion dollar laser microscope is a hard bar to beat in biology. CERN is a hard bar to beat in physics. James Webb telescope recently upstaged Hubble, and the result was a rapid surge in exciting new astronomy papers fueled by the new observations enabled by this new tool.
So I don’t disagree that the lame incentives for predictable incremental grant proposals are part of the problem, but I’m also pretty confident that that isn’t the main source of the slowing of scientific progress.