I think that at this point, a few things need to be clarified (just like butter) so that people have a clear idea of the topic that is being discussed.
There is a difference between the topic of "the value of theory" versus "the value of theorists" in industries. The first is the value of theoretical development to a for-profit entity. The latter is the value of the people who specializes in theories and their skills to those said entities. The argument that theorists can do mathematical modeling in many different areas, etc. are examples of the latter, i.e. those are about the people and their skills, not about the value of theoretical scientific ideas and their development.
Whenever we deal with a topic like this, the only convincing argument to support anything is via bringing up clear examples. There is never going to be a "universal principle" in which something like this can be applied to. In other words, if you say one thing, someone else can equally counter that with something else. A theory may be important in that company, but in another company, it couldn't be any more worthless. So I will claim that it is impossible to make a blanket statement about this topic in any shape or form. The best one can do is to bring up specific examples to show that it CAN happen. And that is what I will try to do. It isn't meant as a universal rule.
The clearest example of where both theory and theorists thrived was at Bell Labs before the breakup of AT&T (i.e. when it was still a monopoly on the US telecommunication system). Bell Labs was arguably THE most prestigious science laboratory in the world at that time. Some of the biggest names in physics came out of there. And this includes theorists. Phil Anderson worked on his Nobel Prize winning theory while at Bell Labs. John Bardeen carried out the theoretical calculations and worked on the first solid-state transistor at Bell Labs. etc.. etc.
So is it merely a coincidence that the glorious years of Bell Labs and the enormous body of patents and inventions came out during this period in which both theory and applications went hand-in-hand and were both living under the same roof?
High-tech industries, for example, depend on theory and advancement in theory. The question is, do they want to do this in-house, or can they just rely on government labs and universities to do such things? The Bell Labs of old did many of their own R&D, which includes theory. But these are long-term investments, and investments in which a profitable outcome isn't guaranteed. Will the greed of today allow for something like that? We have seen what happened when Bell Labs became part of Lucent, and now, all of the sudden, the issue of profit margins becomes the focus.
But another issue here has been overlooked. It can be that a particular company wants to include theoretical development that are in-line with what they do. Maybe a company is developing a new material, and requires theoretical band structure calculations to guide them in the fabrication of this material. But do they really need a theorist to do that? Many of us who graduated in experimental condensed matter physics can also do such theoretical calculations, and more. In other words, the company can hire an experimentalist who can do a lot of theory development, but is also handy with the experimental aspect of fabricating these material. What could be better than that?
So I can easily see a scenario where, yes, industries may value theoretical work, but they need not want only theorists. Therefore, in this case, a company may value theory, but they may not value theorists, simply because they want someone who can do a lot of other things as well.
Zz.
