Despite what the great man myths of the 20th century tell you, there is no specific type of person who can divine the great mysteries of the universe and bring about the renaissance.
If only life, the universe were that simple.
Ideas, creations, concepts, are not just the children of one person, but seeds to be sown into the fields of medicine, of communications, of physics, chemistry, engineering, design, manufacturing.
A single idea is not just simply brought into the world, but explored, investigated, examined, tested, built, used and then constructed in a way that is finally useful to anyone and everyone.
Modern medicine didn’t just happen, the electric light didn’t just happen, the internet didn’t just happen, everything we see in the modern world, everything we use that makes our lives what they are, didn’t just happen.
They were thought of, discussed, explored, tested and eventually built in a way where we could use them, adopt them, and then they would become part of our everyday lives.
And the one common thing about most of them, is that no one was in it for the money. They wanted to see what they could do, what this idea could become, how they could change things in a way unimagined.
And in so many cases, especially where the internet was concerned, it was funded in a way disconnected from the drive for a profit. It was a side effect of a project that wasn’t thought of to make people rich, but for a need, an idea that wasn’t the end result anyway.
Research, exploration, investigation, are not activities that can be directed with certainty, guided by a search for a product, driven by a desire for riches.
They are beyond such simplistic desires, they are part of the yearning to understand and explore what could be, what is possible, how we can do things undreamt of by our ancestors.
Can we develop a drug to combat cancer? Can we create a technology that allows distributed global communication? Can we design machines that take the risk in dangerous conditions, so human lives are not lost? Can we find out how the universe works?
Is there a profit in that? Not a question that should be asked.
When looking to the future do we ask what it costs or what we can do to make the world better?
I do hope it’s the latter.
Don’t you?
Leilani Cowern - Statement to US Congress at National Science Foundation funding hearing