Blockbuster Science! Tech investors reward ‘Breakthough Science’

Blockbuster Science! Its an awesome approach to incentivizing scientists – it’s great that people are applauding for stuff that really matters! People cheer at most ridiculous and inconsequential things – why not funnel this energy into science?

Next step, create high production shorts for real world advances in science (with a tinge of flair) – much like they do to promote blockbuster movies. NY Times stated : “Scientists don’t have the power of celebrities in American society. The Breakthrough Prize tries to change that”

“Yuri Milner, the Russian billionaire, and his high-tech Silicon Valley friends have awarded $29.5 million to seven scientists, a high school student, and a huge team of physics researchers for their varied science achievements.

Milner’s third annual Breakthrough Prizes were financed by his foundation with contributions from Sergey Brin of Google and his wife, 23&Me founder Anne Wojcicki; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook; and Jack Ma of China’s e-commerce giant Alibaba.

Other prizes went to Ed Boyden, now at MIT, who was Deisseroth’s partner at Stanford developing optogenetics; Helen Hobbs, a University of Texas physician who discovered the roles that variant genes play in cholesterol and lipid levels leading to heart disease; John Hardy, a neuroscientist at University College in London, who discovered genetic mutations in the amyloid genes causing Alzheimer’s disease; and Svante Pääbo, the famed anthropologist at Germany’s Max Planck Institute, who sequenced the genes of Neanderthals and discovered traces of the vanished humans called Denisovans.” said David Perlman at SF Gate.

Yuri Milner did an inspiring interview with New Scientist on the positively huge impacts of fundamental research in science on society. ” If you go far enough into the future, a fundamental discovery leads to some new technology.”, said Yuri Milner.

Ed Boyden is on the closing Breakthrough Prize Panel Discussion hosted by Yuri Milner.

Athletic heroes loom large in our imagination – though how often do we stop to think about brilliant scientists and the wonderful things they have achieved that make positive tractable difference in our lives and the world around us?

Elon Musk founder of Tesla and SpaceX said: “It is important to celebrate science and to create role models for science that kids want to emulate.. For the benefit of humanity, we want breakthroughs in science that help us improve standards of living, cure disease, make life better… I’d rather a super-smart, creative kid went into developing breakthrough technologies that improve the world rather than, say, went to Wall Street.”

I see this as a positive sign of a general warming to Enlightenment values and the idea that significant civilizational progress in improving the human condition through science.