Jason Crawford

Some of the earliest polymer materials like cellulose, which is an early sort of proto-plastic made from plant material, or vulcanized rubber, came long before polymer chemistry.

They came in the 1800s.

Polymer chemistry started to really get figured out in the early 1900s.

In fact, sometimes the relevant science here was not just came after the invention, but was directly motivated by the existence of the invention and trying to understand how it works and to optimize it.

So the first example here is a key case.

It's been said that thermodynamics owes more to the steam engine than the steam engine owes to thermodynamics.

So on this basis, some people have developed a kind of a tinkerer model of progress or of innovation.

Nassim Taleb wrote in the Wall Street Journal, tinkering by trial and error has traditionally played a larger role than, quote unquote, directed science in Western invention and innovation.

Britain's historical rise in the Industrial Revolution came from tinkerers, emphasis added here, who gave us innovations like iron making, steam engine, and textile manufacturing.

The great names of the golden years of English science were hobbyists, not academics.

And he named Darwin, Cavendish, et cetera.

Okay, you get the idea.

What I want to do in this talk is try to resolve this paradox.

And I'm going to do it by clarifying the nature of the relationship between science and technology.

I think it's subtle.

And I'll conclude at the end by just hinting at sort of indicating some directions that this might take us in when we think about how we manage R&D, research and development.

So I think the paradox comes from sort of taking a little too seriously or naively an oversimplified linear model, quote unquote, linear model of innovation.

Now, I'll say up front that the linear model is and sort of always has been a straw man.

It's not like a worked out academic theory that somebody proposed and defended.

It's always kind of been a foil, a naive or oversimplified view that people contrast their theories with.