Posted on 01/05/2023 5:19:05 PM PST by Rummyfan
The rate of ground-breaking scientific discoveries and technological innovation is slowing down despite an ever-growing amount of knowledge, according to an analysis released Wednesday of millions of research papers and patents.
While previous research has shown downturns in individual disciplines, the study is the first that "emphatically, convincingly documents this decline of disruptiveness across all major fields of science and technology," lead author Michael Park told AFP.
Park, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, called disruptive discoveries those that "break away from existing ideas" and "push the whole scientific field into new territory."
The researchers gave a "disruptiveness score" to 45 million scientific papers dating from 1945 to 2010, and to 3.9 million US-based patents from 1976 to 2010.
From the start of those time ranges, research papers and patents have been increasingly likely to consolidate or build upon previous knowledge, according to results published in the journal Nature.
(Excerpt) Read more at sciencealert.com ...
Precisely
There are many very significant scientific questions that are not understood but our tools are not sufficient to answer them.
At the fundamental physics level, the LHC energies are unlikely to detect the supersymmetric partners of the Standard Model even though we theoreticially know they should be there. This also goes for the unification of gravity forces with the rest of quantum mechanics. Building sufficient tools would cost billions even if there was a public interest in supporting this science.
Chemistry has fractured into many specialty fields including the basis of life, systems chemistry.
Biology is the science that may transcend the other physical sciences in the coming years in terms of new discoveries. The advancements in synthetic biology are approaching the point of originating novel lifeforms from basic nucleotides using computer designed genes. Perhaps the most profound research is in the field of morophogenic programming. This involves identifying the cellular communication structures controlling the growth of a complex organism from a single cell and reprogramming this cell network to regenerate failed organs and systems. This is independent of the genetic DNA code which makes the proteins but does not architect the actual structures. Such technology could eventually extend life for decades or even centuries.
The America Invents Act, signed by Barack Obama on 16 September 2011, switched U.S. right to the patent from a "first-to-invent" system to a "first-inventor-to-file" system for patent applications filed on or after 16 March 2013.
Many legal scholars have commented that such a change would require a constitutional amendment. Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to "promote the Progress of ... useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to ... Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective ... Discoveries.” These scholars argue that this clause specifically prohibits a first-inventor-to-file system because the term "inventor" refers to a person who has created something that has not existed before.
The change has not been short of detractors. For example, the IEEE stated in its submission to the House Judiciary Committee, charged with the study of the Patent Reform Act of 2007, that "We believe that much of the legislation is a disincentive to inventiveness, and stifles new businesses and job growth by threatening the financial rewards available to innovators in U.S. industry. Passage of the current patent reform bill language would only serve to relax the very laws designed to protect American innovators and prevent infringement of their ideas."
It used to be that children went on field trips to museums to learn about great science discoveries and the people who made them, possibly inspiring them to pursue such heights. Now they attend drag queen story hour and lectures by deviant idiots making them question their genders. The libtards are ruining our country and the rest of the world by destroying the age-old standards of right and wrong, good and bad, what is a family, what is a woman and what is a man. How can we expect supremely sophisticated fields like science to flourish?
Well of course. Everything discoverable has been discovered - there is nothing left.
CRT-based hiring ...
The only real science I hear about now comes from the Discovery Institute...all of it based on intelligent design. So there is some real science going on but not what the culture around us wants to emphasize.
It’s no longer OK to question the science.
“ Park, a doctoral student at the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management, called disruptive discoveries those that “break away from existing ideas” and “push the whole scientific field into new territory.””
The fact that there is a doctoral program at a school of management is a good example of why.
Because of the idea that science is defined by what politicians say it is.
Skip the blacks, it’s the women. Even highly ranked departments are pushing inferior women into the sciences. It’s been happening for many years. Even scientific journals get in on the act.
I’ll play devil’s advocate and say what if the issue is that the low hanging fruit has been picked and the remaining discoveries are ones you really have to work for.
It wasn’t too long ago you could do groundbreaking scientific research with some magnets and a coil of copper wire. Now you have to have a particle accelerator or a supercomputer etc. IOW the costs and the barriers to conducting state of the art scientific research have gotten higher.
Science has been bastardized in order to make a certain group of people wealthy.
Maybe it’s because of the leftist ideology now inculcated in today’s scientists?
Science began as a cult under Charles Lyell with a single objective. I would say mission accomplished.
“Kids aren’t interested in becoming scientists”
Do the schools still do science fairs (or whoever did them)?
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