[lbo-talk] Entering a dark age of innovation

[Dennis Redmond]

> Entering a dark age of innovation
> Robert Adler
>
> In an effort to find out, he plotted major innovations and scientific
> advances over time compared to world population, using the 7200 key
> innovations listed in a recently published book, The History of
> Science and Technology (Houghton Mifflin, 2004). The results surprised
> him.

Well, Huebner uses two metrics -- patents, and a textbook -- which may not
be measuring very much. Patents are just the commercial property-right to
an invention, but lots of innovations (in art, culture, programming, etc.)
never show up in the patent office.

What *is* stagnating and being cut back, though, is the US university
system, its once world-class labs and research facilities are going on the
chopping block. Per capita numbers of US PhD students have been stable or
slight decline for 30 years, NIH funding is being slashed, foreigners are
starting to go to school at home instead of coming to the US. FOI, an
Intel-supported thinktank, has some numbers here:

www.futureofinnovation.org/PDF/Benchmarks.pdf

-- DRR