The Problem with Billionaire Science

The problem with billionaire science

By David M. Ewalt

A version of the size of a poster of the first page of the very first issue of this magazine is suspended in the hall of the office of the city of Springer Nature in New York. I pass in front of several times a day, and a line of text has remained with me to the point that I continue to lift it during meetings – so often that I fear that my colleagues get tired of hearing it.

The line is at the top of the page, just under the words “American scientist“, Declaring the publication mission:” The defender of industry and company, and Journal of Mechanical and Other Improvements “. It attracts my attention because it reminds me that the first problem was largely created to promote manufacturing and trade;

Of course, there are good reasons that, in the 180 years that followed this first issue, science and industry have developed a complicated relationship, just as there are good reasons for some people to have a complicated relationship with capitalism; Remember, remember, American scientist Has existed for so long that it is prior to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto by three years.

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During these two centuries, we saw the private industry give birth to entirely new scientific fields. Edison and Westinghouse were the pioneer of electrical engineering; Thanks to IBM and Xerox and At & T, I have the computer on which I write this. And business sciences have not only delivered new gadgets: the industrialization of the discovery of drugs has led to progress in pharmaceutical sciences and biomedicine that have saved countless lives.

Our history of coverage in this issue is a very history of the 21st century of the way in which capitalism can help stimulate creation, but does not always lead to something as good as the invention of the transistor. In March 2017, another American scientist Cover Story celebrated a project entitled Breakthrough Starshot, launched by Yuri Milner, a billionaire from Silicon Valley who is committed to spending $ 100 million to send a cloud of tiny ships to Alpha Centauri. More than eight years later, scientific journalist and Sciam The editor -in -chief Sarah Scoles reveals that only a small fraction of this money has ever materialized, and the project was actually lost in space.

It is a fascinating look at how billionaire science can go wrong, and I think it is full of important lessons on what could be one of the best hopes for science in the United States in the coming decades. Massive cuts in government funding for research and higher education will block a large part of the traditional and academic routes towards innovation, and even if these cuts are ultimately reversed, it could take a lot of time to rebuild what we will have lost in the meantime.

It therefore seems to me that a large number of researchers will have to count on business – and, yes, billionaires – as they did not do since before the Second World War. We know that billionaire science can work: Milner’s listening project has already scanned thousands of stars in the most complete research of extraterrestrial intelligence to date, and the Allen Institute of the co-founder of Microsoft, Paul Allen, has made big jumps in bioscience, including the creation of open cards widely used in expression in the mouse and human.

While we are entering a new era of inadequately funded government sciences, the American scientific community will have to understand how to maintain leadership in research and innovation – or if this is even possible. Closer links with companies can be our best bet. We just have to learn to know when the money is too good to be true.

I am curious to know your reflections on our coverage and on your point of view on billionaire science in general. Send us an e-mail to editors@sciam.com to share your impressions and visit us to Scienticamerican.com to stay part of the conversation.

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