Integral said:
I find myself differentiating between advances in technology, and advancing the body of knowledge of mankind. You can built many neat little techie devices that do nothing to advance the body of knowledge. If fact neat little techie devices are all from concepts well within the body of knowledge of man.
I'd stratify further. There is basic new knowledge i.e. foundational research in mathematics and physics, and fundamental applied science (e.g. materials engineering, process control), and then component technology, (e.g. better processor designs, blue laser diodes, better sensors...) and finally commercial and consumer technology (e.g. Wii, 3g phones, solar panels, ...)
But things can mix across hierarchy boundaries, new political paradigms based on social networking over the internet, mathematics of distributed processes, quantum computing using MRI, robotic surgery. A new "gadget" can surreptitiously create a new foundational topic of mathematics or new area of fundamental applied science.
Its like in evolution. A particular genome may not be a "survival trait" in an absolute sense but become one subject to evolutionary progression of other species. Flowers are useless without the pollinating animals.
Certainly fundamental physics are not so conditional but I assert that much of what we think of as fundamental knowledge is not just discovered, it is created.
jambaugh,
I disagree with you, I do not believe that a BS (which is the level of knowledge you refer to) makes anyone a research grade scientist. A BS makes you a technician working for a research grade scientist.
That was not my assertion. The general BS (level) was a baseline before one starts specialized training in a specific field. Said training may indeed incorporate working as a technician for a research grade scientist. My main assertion was that the average Joe (or Jane) could achieve this level by age 18 if they so desired and worked hard and had proper educational environment. (several if's here of course).
For the most part the low hanging fruit of science has been picked, we must now work harder and harder for each advance. It is only going to harder as knowledge accumulates with the passage of time.
Here again I don't quite agree. We imagine say Thomas Edison milling out his gramophone or discovering thermonic emissions of electrons in his light bulbs all in a "primitive" "garage" type laboratory. But there was a lot of background advancement e.g. basic chemistry, materials technology which allowed him to produce these where e.g. in Ancient Rome or Egypt you couldn't build a lightbulb without quite a bit of reinvention of subsidiary tech.
Who's to say some smart young man running simulations on his garage supercomputer couldn't stumble across a cure for cancer or theory of quantum gravity or innovative means to store energy. More likely some innovation we can't imagine until he shows us and we say "Oh! Why didn't I think of that!" You speak of low hanging fruit but there is the implicit assumption of a fixed ground level. What is out of reach today may become tomorrows "low hanging fruit".
I don't say this is necessarily so by any means. You may be quite right. But history is full of pronouncements that we've plumbed the depth of available fundamental science and all that is left now is to refine its application. Then along comes some joker discovering radioactivity and we're off again.