He is of course right that the next 50 years will be different than the last 50 years.
The United States is very unlikely to be as dominant in science and technology in the next half century as it was in the last; other countries and regions will attain a position more consistent with their size and the size of their populations.
Loss of undisputed scientific and technological leadership may not be all that unpleasant for the United States. Consider that Europe lost that leadership during the first half of the 20th century to the United States. Europeans have managed to lead very happy and productive lives in spite of that loss of competitive advantage. Moreover, think what would Europe's last half century have been like had the United States not taken the leadership, and developed so many of the technologies that make life better in Europe. We may all benefit from the rest of the world producing more science, inventing more, and creating more motors for global development.
He is correct that the U.S. domination of science has been decreasing since its extreme level just after World War II, and that more science is going to be done in other countries in the next half century than in the last.He is correct that there was a radical change in U.S. scientific and technological institutions following World War II, and that the war experience convinced American policy makers that science based technology was worth investing in. Big firms did create in-house laboratories after the war.
Scientific and technological institutions have evolved greatly in the past 60 years. We now have a system supporting technological start-ups with venture capital, incubators, and small industry research grants. Large companies have found it is often better to buy successful small technology firms than to try to do all the innovation in house. We have industrial partnerships to develop pre-competitive technologies, university-industry partnerships, and yes firms outsource R&D, including to other countries. My guess is that GERD will continue to increase worldwide, and even in the United States. Post-Scientific Society indeed!
I would suggest that it takes a long time for fundamental research results to fully work through the processes involved in economic revolutions. The Information Revolution is based on developments in solid state physics which resulted in semiconductors, transistors, integrated circuits and lasers, which made (economically) possible fiber optics, computers and satellite communications. Not only are we still working through the social and economic consequences of physics and materials science developments from the first half of the 20th century, these may be considered to be further developments of studies in the physics of electomagnetism in the 19th century.
The nature of the social and economic implications depends on the nature of the technological innovations. For example, the development of mechanical devices and water and steam power in a couple of hundred years ago resulted in factories built around large scale sources of power. The introduction of electrical power resulted in individually powered machines, and a different organization. The Information Revolution is having different social and economic impacts than did the Industrial revolution.
We know that there are waves of scientific and technological innovation. The next waves are not clear. I think it is likely that biotechnology, nanotechnology, individualized biomedical technology based on genomics and related advances, and cognitive and neurological technologies are likely candidates for future technological revolutions. Each of these is likely to have different implications than those of information technology or the technologies of the industrial revolution.
Hill may underestimate the importance of American innovations that were not dependent on the physical sciences and engineering. He uses Walmart as an example, but there were major organizational innovations in the United States in the past. Think of McDonalds, or in earlier times, Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, or the national enterprises created by the Robber Barons at the end of the 19th century. In terms of non-science based technologies consider the assembly line, scientific management, or the American System of Manufacture.
Hill is right in that the United States is likely to see its share of the world's inventions go down in the next half century as compared with the last.
There is a First Adopter advantage to the nations that first adopt a commercially important innovation. However, that is an advantage, not destiny. Other factors are involved in the ability to profit from inventions. The United States has a huge internal market, which is an advantage, and can continue to build its access to global markets. I see little if any advantage for being a late innovator, so American firms should have good surveillance mechanisms and be early adopters of inventions. Importantly, they should build the capacity not only to adopt inventions from wherever they occur rapidly, but to improve them and commercialize them effectively.
It is interesting that the same people who are most worried about the loss of American competitive advantage in many manufacturing industries to other nations, are also convinced that losing the inventors advantage to other nations will prove insuperable. The issue is how much of the benefits from innovations can be appropriated by the industries in a country. U.S. industry should seek to continue to appropriate a large share not only of inventions made here, but also in other countries.
Social sciences are also sources of important innovations, and one hopes that we will continue to benefit from the social sciences and thus to innovate socially. Hill recognizes innovations such as Head Start and aspects of the War on Poverty came from social science research. Others, such as women sufferage and the abolition of slavery came from a sense of justice rather than science. Both should continue to be important.
I hope that the next 50 years will be a time of invention fueled innovation that will benefit the United States and the rest of the world. I would expect the technological innovations to be different in nature from those of the past, and I would expect social and cultural innovations to continue.
Bob Textor pointed out years ago that we are tempo-centric as well as ethno-centric. Not all of the changes will be pleasing to those around today. On the other hand, I imagine that people at the end of the 21st century will look back on us today with some pity for our primitive ways. At least that will be true if mankind overcomes its propensity to pollute its own environment.
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