Not every good idea can make a profit. When you demand that all ideas do, you'll be missing out...
The secret to doing pure research in the modern era is to hype up the applied aspects for grant-hunting purposes. Developmental biologists and geneticists don't do "pure research": They do "cancer research" or "stem cell research aimed at curing Alzheimers". Even when someone who hasn't read certain paragraphs of the grant proposal would have a lot of trouble telling the difference. ("Are you sure you're not just having fun trying to make the fruit fly grow new eyes in embarrassing places?" "No, I'm studying the regulation of this very important oncogene, implicated in 36% of human cancers, that also happens to make fruit files see out of their feet." The beauty of it is: None of this is untrue. [1])
And a lot of that vice-Provost stuff is for show. Most professors couldn't actually make money in the market if it fell on their head. They're filing patents, collecting letters of collaboration from captains of industry, and talking big about "entrepreneurship" because it's cheap talk that impresses funding agencies. (A lot of funding applications have a section for listing such things.)
Finally, it's important to remember why there used to be a lot of industry money for "pure" research [2]: Monopolies. The public paid for that research via what amounted to a set of not-particularly-progressive sales taxes on phones (Bell Labs), photocopiers (Xerox PARC), and computer equipment (IBM labs). I don't have a study or anything, but it seems to me that soon after each of these big companies started seeing significant market competition, their pure research started to dry up, despite its world-class quality. It may be that pure research can't survive in a competitive market: The only way to sustain it is via tax-supported public funding. Hopefully with more intelligently-designed taxes than, say, a tax on all our phones.
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[1] Except that I made this oncogene up. ;) What I'm trying to say is: It's true that understanding cancer requires us to understand apparently unconnected facts about eye development in fruit flies. There's little about growth and development that doesn't have implications for cancer.
[2] It's also possible to argue that the industrially-funded "pure" research of old wasn't particularly pure. It was all intended to be applied or sold... just on a time scale more suited for a monopoly than a startup. Of course, it turned out that, even given a long-enough time, such a plan often doesn't work: For example, Xerox turned out to be well equipped to prototype the Alto, but was very ill equipped to manufacture and market it. It took a much younger and less mature company to do that.
I also think it's worth noting that the longer the time-scale over which the research will become profitable, the greater the number unforeseen applications. A good example of this was Shannon's work at Bell Labs. Not only did it justify the eventual move toward digital transmission, but it also made possible a wide swath of genetics research. Now who could have foreseen that? and how much did those geneticists actually pay for the research?
As for the ability of researchers to game the system, and your assertion that the University entrepreneurship push is all for show, I'm less sure than you that "everything will be okay". I recently, as a graduate student, approached the office of sponsored research (OSR) for assistance in applying for NIH funding. The people in OSR didn't have a director and didn't know who was overseeing my department. When I finally did locate the correct person there, he was rather helpful, but I posed the question to him: There are many opportunities for both students and professors, but I had to find this one on my own. Why doesn't OSR promote more federal funding?
His response was that the school is actively pursuing funding through patent licensing and commercial partnerships, so the OSR has received less attention and has fewer resources at its disposal.
In other words, I don't doubt the ability of researchers to sell their basic science programs to federal funding agencies and the public as having practical applications, but I do worry about them loosing institutional support as institutions look more and more toward industry partnerships. After all, a congressperson might be fooled into believing that E. coli genetics research can help cure heart disease (a spin that I personally put on an application for AHA funding ;-), but Merck or Pfizer will be much less enthusiastic about the same spin if they don't have a lead molecule in 3-4 years time.
I upmodded you because I think your post is worthwhile but I think you're conflating entreprenurship with short-sighted greed.
Entrepreneurship and genius are just different aspects of the same thing: solving problems in new ways, more often than not by challenging the percieved rules of the game.
Certainly Ron Popeil is some kind of genius...George Foreman too. But I'd challenge anyone to hand me a business model that could be formed around General Relativity! If we had demanded a business plan from Einstein before we let him continue working on his ideas, he'd probably have died a patent clerk.
And the line between graduate school and consulting is getting way too thin. One of my GRAs required that I spend time on-site with the customer -- sorry, "corporate partner on the research grant."
1. Jeff Hawkins, with Numenta, and the Redwood Neuroscience Institute.
2. David Shaw, with D.E. Shaw Research.
3. Elon Musk, with SpaceX.One might argue, that by definition a 'good idea' is one that is profitable for its pursuer.
Don't confuse the exchange of federal reserve notes for profit.
By your saying "When you demand that all ideas do, you'll be missing out..." I take it you are not confused in this regard.
If you're willing to loosen your grip on the necessity for all ideas to be fact-based, and let some of the fuzzy in, the idea of a muse can serve as a useful perspective on the creative process. It's a hell of lot more useful than sticking electrodes on people and trying to quantify creativity with statistical analysis.
Even hackers have muses.
I'm OK with fuzziness, but mysticism appals me.
Or taking excessively precise measurements of the shape of people's heads. ;-)
The muse is some mystical bullshit that we feed one another to make things look like magic. No one wants to hear the dirty details of creating something because, for some reason, it ruins the image of the final result.
It's a Jedi-mind-trick thing.
"I often hear people say, “I’m not good enough yet to be published.” That’s quite possible. Probable, even. All I’m saying is: Let someone else decide that. Magazines, editors, agents – they all employ young people making $22,000 a year whose job it is to read through piles of manuscripts and send you back letters telling you that you aren’t good enough yet: LET THEM DO IT. Don’t pre-reject yourself. That’s their job, not yours. Your job is only to write your heart out, and let destiny take care of the rest."
"There are heaps of books out there on How To Get Published. Often people find the information in these books contradictory. My feeling is -- of COURSE the information is contradictory. Because, frankly, nobody knows anything. Nobody can tell you how to succeed at writing (even if they write a book called “How To Succeed At Writing”) because there is no WAY; there are, instead, many ways. Everyone I know who managed to become a writer did it differently – sometimes radically differently. "
http://www.elizabethgilbert.com/writing.htm Submitting essay link for what it's worth..
I've never seen that in fiction, though.
If any of you enjoy biographies, stories of scientific and engineering heroism, and haven't read "The Making of the Atomic Bomb," please do. It is an extraordinary story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Oppenheimer
Oppenheimer destroyed himself, allying himself with the only orthodoxy [but somehow being not orthodox] that was more murderous than fascism.
In my experience, genius is the result of turning over a problem in your head over and over, learning all the angles, and then relaxing and forgetting about it for a while. While you're forgetting about it, your brain can make subconscious connections between everything you've learned that seem to come from nowhere. But you have to have the background knowledge.
I find that I have tons of creative ideas when I'm just starting out a project. They almost all turn out to be bad ones. Then once I explore a bit, learn everything there is to know about the area, I'll occasionally get a decent idea. If I don't think too hard about it.