Grand Theories: How Far Have We Come and Where Will We Go?

President Obama's call for science to be "restored to its proper place" excites science policy advocates. Science, it appears, may play an important role in informing societal decisions and restarting the country's economic engines. Lawmakers heeded his call during the construction of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009: upon passage, the act included more than $17 billion for scientific research and infrastructure, intended in part to "secure America's role as a world leader in a competitive global economy...[by] renewing America's investments in basic research and development." But can these investments spur the innovations necessary for the country to find good alternatives to fossil fuels, help stem climate change, and lead the world in finding solutions to other catastrophic problems? It depends. Innovation comes from transformative, integrative, and often risky research, say influential reports from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Research Council (NRC), among others. The question is, then, has such transformative, integrative, and risky research become part of the culture and practice of biologists? Over the course of most of the 20th century, biology research became increasingly reductionist and compartmentalized, with little exchange of ideas and information between the field's subdisciplines. In the 1990s, however, the growth of interdisciplinary collaborations and advances in technology led to the concept of integrative biol...
Source: Washington Watch - Category: Biology Authors: Source Type: news