This is great. There are a few sub-explanations that are missed here. I think they are worth pointing out.
1: There is a difference between basic science and applied science. I intuit that the percentage of science that is applied science has grown a lot (with, for example, a lot of industry funding of science labs, looking for very specific things that can be commercialised, which are much less likely to result in fundamental breakthroughs and also less likely to be shared, because the public institution in general cannot openly publish research done on contract for a private firm). It also makes sense to me that applied science is less productive. I’m more interested in the progress in basic science so I wonder if there is a better way to separate these from one another.
2: I imagine the motivation of the average scientist has changed over time. I imagine that in the 19th century the vast majority of scientists were motivated to make fundamental advances in their fields. I imagine this has dwindled to a small minority. This is slightly related to the first point in the sense that if you don’t care about fundamental breakthroughs you may be more interested in applied science, but there is still this fundamental/incremental axis within basic science.
This is great. There are a few sub-explanations that are missed here. I think they are worth pointing out.
1: There is a difference between basic science and applied science. I intuit that the percentage of science that is applied science has grown a lot (with, for example, a lot of industry funding of science labs, looking for very specific things that can be commercialised, which are much less likely to result in fundamental breakthroughs and also less likely to be shared, because the public institution in general cannot openly publish research done on contract for a private firm). It also makes sense to me that applied science is less productive. I’m more interested in the progress in basic science so I wonder if there is a better way to separate these from one another.
2: I imagine the motivation of the average scientist has changed over time. I imagine that in the 19th century the vast majority of scientists were motivated to make fundamental advances in their fields. I imagine this has dwindled to a small minority. This is slightly related to the first point in the sense that if you don’t care about fundamental breakthroughs you may be more interested in applied science, but there is still this fundamental/incremental axis within basic science.
Interesting analysis, though it does feel like kind of an intractably large problem. Enjoyed the read!