# Scientific Freedom Tags: #literature ## Metadata * Author: [Donald W. Braben](https://www.amazon.comundefined) * ASIN: B08HTWQC66 * ISBN: 0578675919 * Reference: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08HTWQC66 * [Kindle link](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66) ## Highlights The great iconoclastic scientist Albert Szent-Györgyi was the first to isolate the vitamin C molecule and to discover the components and reactions of the citric acid cycle, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1937. In a letter to the journal Science in 1972, he said that scientists could be divided into two classes, Dionysians and Apollonians—in science, the Apollonian tends to develop established lines to their limit, while the Dionysian relies on intuition and is more likely to open new, unexpected lines of research.2 Szent-Györgyi, of course, regarded himself as a Dionysian. — location: [54](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=54) ^ref-60003 --- The funding agencies in every country in the world, but especially Britain, seem to believe that a healthy scientific enterprise can best be arranged if agencies rigorously concentrate funding on those well-defined areas deemed the highest priorities, thus strongly favoring Apollonians. Consequently, academic research is becoming increasingly predictable, which encourages competitiveness and focuses on the short term. — location: [59](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=59) ^ref-28299 --- On other days, with other experts with different perspectives making the fateful decisions, those might have been funded. — location: [68](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=68) ^ref-24908 --- We understand only a tiny proportion of what there is to be understood, and some discoveries have to be stumbled upon by scientists who must also recognize their luck. The best way of arranging for that, as we have seen over the past century and more, is to allow the most creative scientists freedom to roam, explore, and follow their intuition. — location: [70](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=70) ^ref-49550 --- scientists are likely to avoid the so-far intractable problems, because progress might require radically new approaches, assumptions, or techniques that will probably not fit into the current priorities — location: [74](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=74) ^ref-43183 --- However, when unfashionably audacious proposals eventually turn out to be successful, as they often have been, they can open up new fields that lead to new insights and—for agencies interested in gainful outcomes—opportunities for highly profitable investment. — location: [76](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=76) ^ref-60840 --- The role of young researchers—their exuberance, confidence, and tendency to ignore tradition—is as vitally important today as it always has been. Many of the great discoveries were made by scientists in their twenties or thirties,5 but for such youth to get unconstrained backing would be almost impossible nowadays. — location: [94](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=94) ^ref-18800 --- since the 1950s, one of the most widely accepted concepts has been “creative destruction,” derived by Joseph Schumpeter,12 often called Schumpeter’s gale. This concept postulates an incessant struggle among industries in which outdated old technologies are replaced by selections from the new, the threat of which stimulates industrial innovation. — location: [112](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=112) ^ref-48414 --- While peer reviewers are invited by the committees that oversee them to be more adventurous and encourage proposals from the young, peer review remains stubbornly conservative and inhibitory of radical initiative. — location: [124](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=124) ^ref-48352 Academia incentivizes publishing. Academics optimize for # of papers, not creatvity. --- It is proposed that potential pioneers—possible members of a twenty-first-century Planck Club—be selected and funded by individual universities from their own resources, as indeed used to be the practice. — location: [131](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=131) ^ref-6659 --- Each participating university should appoint one or two scientists to make the selections, avoiding, of course, the influence of peer review, consensus, and impact. — location: [134](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=134) ^ref-27178 How can this be avoided? This type of process is ripe for politicking. --- There will be mistakes and misjudgments, but at least some radical applications will survive, and some of them will succeed. Selectors should seek to redefine the role of research, to back imaginative people not projects, and, above all, to listen. — location: [138](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=138) ^ref-9699 Would require acdemics to have courage. To be willing to look stupid. Look up cold fusion. Galileo and the church. --- It’s been forgotten that we did not need special arrangements for finding the Einsteins in the past. There was enough flexibility in the system to allow them to emerge, but that’s been removed in the quest for efficiency. — location: [142](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=142) ^ref-39108 --- Science does not lack opportunity. There are few, if any, fields that are fully understood. Thus, radical approaches on, say, the nature of gravity, or the sources of dark energy/dark matter, or consciousness, or any topic whose importance has yet to be widely recognized might qualify for support. Scientific potential, therefore, is almost as great as it was, say, a hundred years ago. But we shall create a twenty-first-century Planck Club and its spectacular harvest of unforeseen breakthroughs only if we restore the freedom that stimulates them. — location: [166](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=166) ^ref-28177 --- Unfortunately, university finances today are under unprecedented pressure, and many might find it difficult to embark on new programs, no matter how inexpensive they may prove. — location: [175](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=175) ^ref-64614 Inexpensive? --- Peer review totally dominates thought, and it seems inconceivable that it could sometimes be seriously wrong. — location: [184](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=184) ^ref-55886 --- Although universities should take the lead, as almost all the major Planck Club discoveries originated in the academic sector, industries (and particularly large companies such as BP, IBM, and Roche) and private investors and philanthropists should reconsider their sponsorship of radical basic research conducted by individuals or small groups. — location: [191](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=191) ^ref-41789 --- The costs would be relatively small, as this type of research is remarkably cheap, — location: [195](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=195) ^ref-48198 again, remarkably cheap? --- By focusing on such externalities as efficiency and value for money, these organizations favor Apollonians and seriously limit the creativity of the proposals they will support. At the level of the working scientist, these policies are treated as facts of modern life that must be tolerated if one wants funding. Unfortunately, that tolerance apparently morphs into acceptance when scientists are “promoted” into these ranks, which may explain these organizations’ unchanging behavior over the years, and why they seem insulated against radical change. — location: [205](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=205) ^ref-28470 --- New products, new industries, and more jobs require continuous additions to knowledge of the laws of nature, and the application of that knowledge to practical purposes…. This essential, new knowledge can be obtained only through basic scientific research. — location: [370](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=370) ^ref-15683 --- The Renaissance then stirred the human spirit, and later created the conditions that launched the Industrial Revolution, first in Britain, and then rapidly elsewhere. Slowly at first we began to harvest our understanding of Nature and to use it for the greater good—material and intellectual. The result was that by the end of the twentieth century the average productivity of every man and woman had increased more than a hundredfold in real terms since the Renaissance. Global population also increased rapidly, but material wealth in the industrialized nations more than kept pace. — location: [379](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=379) ^ref-30457 --- This prodigious progress came from our growing ability to harvest the fruits of humanity’s intellectual prowess—scientific endeavor, as it is usually called. — location: [383](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=383) ^ref-35371 --- This perhaps surprising statement arises because the agencies’ virtually universal response to the crisis was to restrict the types of research they would fund. Thus, to use a truly horrible word, they would prioritize, and focus funding on the most attractive objectives—that is, objectives the agencies perceived to be the most attractive. Thus, for the first time since the Renaissance, the limits of thinking began to be systematically curtailed. — location: [389](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=389) ^ref-23979 --- Increasingly nowadays, freedom is a managed commodity, but the consequences are subtle and varied. Indeed, at least for the time being, it is possible for almost everyone to live happily and productively within the current bounds. That is also generally the case in the sciences except for one essential factor. Those exceptionally rare scientists whose revolutionary work can open new horizons can do so only if they have total freedom. The routes to new types of knowledge can be deceptively disguised, and may appear to ordinary mortals as unimportant byways leading nowhere. There must be no filters whatsoever on what these scientists do, therefore, however well intended. Furthermore, their work is vital to future prosperity. — location: [406](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=406) ^ref-21209 --- No doctrinal system in physical science, or indeed perhaps in any science, will alter its content of its own accord. Here we always need the pressure of outer circumstances. Indeed the more intelligible and comprehensive a theoretical system is the more obstinately it will resist all attempts at reconstruction or expansion. — location: [421](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=421) ^ref-379 --- Before 1970 or so, tenured academics with an individual turn of mind could usually dig out modest sources of funding to tackle any problem that interested them without first having to commit themselves in writing. Afterward, unconditional sources of funds would become increasingly difficult to find. Today, they are virtually nonexistent. — location: [438](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=438) ^ref-6288 --- Now that the new policies are firmly established, for the first time in science’s long history researchers must submit their proposals in writing to an appropriate agency. Spontaneity has been lost. The funding agencies subject these proposals to an arcane set of tests (peer review) designed to flag what they perceive as the best, expecting thereby that the rest will probably be lost. These well-intentioned changes have created lumbering bureaucracies to ensure compliance. They have also inhibited exploration outside the mainstreams and challenges to convention. This is most unfortunate because the great discoveries that transformed the twentieth century came out of the blue. There was no demand for them. One might suggest that the Manhattan Project and the Human Genome Project are among examples to the contrary, but the unexpected discoveries on which they were based had come much earlier. — location: [476](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=476) ^ref-2335 --- Humanity is indeed blessed with the ingenuity necessary for survival, but much of this priceless asset will be wasted if we smother it with consensus. — location: [508](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=508) ^ref-51502 --- Sadly, however, even though the fruits of research are essential for modern life, the media seem to confine their interest to specific discoveries; research as an enterprise is generally ignored, and research policies have even less appeal apparently, if that is possible. — location: [510](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=510) ^ref-44187 --- Patronage and sponsorship have always been important, but their agendas were diverse and they often backed creative talent for its own sake. Society’s reward was a remarkably steady trickle of astonishing miracles. But times have changed; funding agencies’ mission statements (or other expressions of purpose) are now de rigueur, and often cast in stone. This situation has long been the case for researchers in the industrial sector, but that is to be expected. Industrialists must know where they are going. Now, academics, too, are almost invariably subject to externally imposed constraints. — location: [513](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=513) ^ref-61291 --- “Humanity has been given the priceless gift of creativity, but it’s vital that you understand how it works. Creativity is the essence of the human spirit, and flowers best when it’s unconstrained. If you try to control it for your own ends you must learn that you can get only what you ask for. The unexpected will not arise. You are not wizards.” — location: [530](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=530) ^ref-30566 --- The financial cost of liberating a small proportion of the scientific enterprise—say, for transformative research initiatives—would be barely noticeable. — location: [548](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=548) ^ref-20140 --- However, the rules by which governments and others oblige them to operate are too rigid. Accountability for every cent means that the return on every cent must be justified. The result is short-termism. — location: [549](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=549) ^ref-56103 --- We don’t need new technologies to solve our problems; while new technologies can make some contribution, for the most part we “just” need the political will to apply solutions already available. Of course, that’s a big “just.” — location: [570](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=570) ^ref-3937 --- we fortunately do have a locus for those capable of seeing the writing on the wall and diagnosing solutions. It is called the university. For many centuries, that institution has often defied the establishment and has always stood ready to offer guidance and advice, but the recent changes undermine its independence and potential. — location: [593](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=593) ^ref-6841 --- One of the themes here is that almost every serious researcher is at some time in a career capable of taking those fateful steps that might lead to a great discovery or the creation of penetrating new insight. They might then need to draw on vast reserves of courage and determination, and perhaps also a little luck if they are to make progress. At any one time, of course, the proportion of researchers ready to seize that possibly once-in-a-lifetime opportunity will be very small, so if they are prevented from doing so the democratic pressure they can exert is insignificant. — location: [597](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=597) ^ref-6756 --- It will only be solved if the beneficiaries—that is, the general public—take an interest and do something about it. It is their, that is your future that is at stake. — location: [601](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=601) ^ref-26786 --- Chapter 1 introduces the formidable Damocles Zone, and outlines how we can avoid it. The Sword of Damocles is, of course, a fable, but the consequences of moving into that eponymous Zone can be all too real. — location: [648](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=648) ^ref-32479 --- Today, our current obsession with so-called efficiency and accountability is hardly consistent with promoting creativity, but in sharp contrast to the Dark Ages we have expanding populations with increasing expectations. — location: [654](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=654) ^ref-41642 --- Chapter 2 describes transformative research, the term now used in the United States to describe the research that has a reasonable chance of radically changing our understanding of important concepts or creating new fields of science. — location: [657](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=657) ^ref-21782 --- sponsors of these initiatives must recognize that major breakthroughs in scientific understanding are impossible to commission. The most we can do is to restore the freedom that leads to them. — location: [661](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=661) ^ref-4427 --- Chapter 3 discusses why we should be concerned about our current predicament. Global per capita economic growth rates are falling, a fact that seems related to the policy changes made since about 1970. So-called breakthrough discoveries made in recent times are contrasted with some of the pre-1970 vintage that so transformed our lives. Before that fateful date, scientific discovery was intensely personal. Nowadays, however, research tends to follow the fashions of consensus. — location: [663](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=663) ^ref-14640 --- Chapter 4 discusses how we might go about finding Planck’s successors. The essential point is that such initiatives must pass the “Planck test” if they are to stand a chance of succeeding. Thus, search parties must genuinely believe that their procedures would probably have led to the support of Planck et al. when they were starting out. Unfortunately, the funding agencies seem preoccupied with so-called high-risk research. They do not seem to have realized that they have hijacked the management of risk—that should normally be the researcher’s responsibility, at least for academics. — location: [674](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=674) ^ref-27553 --- Chapter 5 describes how a transformative research initiative might work in practice. Unfortunately, one’s procedures must also be transformative if the effects of the post-1970 changes are to be mitigated. The ultimate objective is to create a twenty-first-century Planck Club, of course, but likely members of such an august Club will probably be very careful when sharing their ideas. There must be mutual trust, and that must be won. — location: [681](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=681) ^ref-23567 --- Chapter 6 discusses the university as an institution, the very home of the intellectual dimension. This most successful of our institutions has served society well over the centuries. — location: [686](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=686) ^ref-52013 --- Chapter 7 gives the first full account of the 26 programs being funded by the Venture Research initiative at its close in 1990, and of their eventual progress. No programs are excluded. — location: [693](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=693) ^ref-50347 --- Humanity’s future seems precariously balanced. We are facing a daunting catalog of problems of which perhaps the most intractable is that the majority of the world’s population are now demanding the higher standards of living long enjoyed by the industrial nations. There is no reason in principle why that cannot happen. However, if we are all to have decent shares of cake, there must be a lot more cake; that is, global per capita economic growth must continue to increase, year after year. Unfortunately, the underlying trend in recent years seems to indicate a decrease. Growth depends on technical change, but management by objectives and other instruments of bureaucracy are strangling scientific research, and our universities are struggling to cope with their rising demands. Thus, the global warning seems clear—falling growth and rising expectations could drive some regions into a chronically unstable state leading to the Damocles Zone and collapse. — location: [698](kindle://book?action=open&asin=B08HTWQC66&location=698) ^ref-47873 ---