Why Independent Science Now?

Catalysts.

I expect that independent science - the act of studying and experimenting on nature outside of academia - is going to grow quickly.

But why now as opposed to other periods in time? I think there are compelling catalysts. I’m going to list them casually. A lot of these are vibes and anecdotes, so am keen to hear feedback.

Reduced government funding, tight fiscal conditions and higher debt load means that less government money is going to traditional academia. Unfortunately, this was no surprise with the US, nor with the UK. But I was saddened to hear similar complaints by the Japanese Nobel prize winners. This means that people who want to do science are going to have less opportunities to do it in government funded academia. But I don’t think that there will be any less desire, and so people will find other ways independently.

Some government funding agencies are supportive of alternative ways to do science, and are willing to fund people with alternative backgrounds. For example, the ARIA programmes have programme directors from different backgrounds. From my reading, they seem willing to fund those not from traditional backgrounds too.

Philanthropic funding agencies are investing into meta-science at different scales. For example, Renaissance Philanthropy, Convergent Research and others are trying to do new science organisational work with FRCs, FROs. There are also smaller grant making programmes like Bagel Fund.

People realising that traditional publishing and peer review is annoying. More and more scientists seem to be open in communicating results in different ways, like blogs. This makes it easier for folks not in academia to get their results out on blogs and communicate on a level comparable to academics. See arxiv, Erik Hoel, distill.pub. There is also seems to be vibes that scientists are more aware of the importance of better scientific communication. See The Distressed Scientist Dept.

The history / philosophy of science blogosphere is getting popular. Folks like Adam Mastroianni’s Science House and Slime Mold Time Mold have made me realise that traditional academia is a fairly new invention! For most of our history, most people did science independently and recreationally.

The rise of discord. I cofounded an independent science discord group where we share ideas, and there are other really popular ones too like EleutherAI.

LLMs make it easier to get to knowledge frontiers. Provided you know how to use them properly, people aren’t wasting time trying to find the right paper they need. You can just ask an LLM that now. Terry Tao on literature review.

LLMs are making it easier to do DIY home labs. Independent science seems ripe for the theoretical sciences, but I think empirical stuff is going to get easier too. My experiments with air purifiers and yeast were significantly aided with LLMs - they told me how to do the mundane stuff like calibration, electronics, sterilisation, dose quantities and much more. I probably couldn’t have done it without LLMs. Flip side: LLMs don’t really help with wet lab work because of safety concerns, which is understandable.

Cheaper microelectronics, consumer goods and delivery. Next day delivery is possible. It’s now really quick and easy to order microelectronics and components, so I am optimistic for a development in home labs. Checkout PhysicsOpenLab.

People being put off PhDs. It’s no secret anymore that PhDs are underpaid and the experience seems heavily dependent on how cool your supervisor is.

People not working as much in their day jobs. People realising that they deserve more leisure time and not have to just work for the man! Leisure time has always been a component of European and UK culture, but reduced working hours and less intensive culture has been shown in East Asia as well. I think COVID and remote working had something to do with this.

Interdisciplinary science getting big. Interdisciplinary science needs people from diverse backgrounds right? There are probably some great candidates outside of academia.

The rise of ‘higher agency’ philosophical movements. Stuff like EA, concepts like agency, things like the ‘you can actually just do things’ meme.

People are caring less about status and more about meaning. Is it just me or are Gucci handbags not really a thing anymore? I don’t know if this has something to do with the AI boom or polarisation or whatever but I think being materialistic isn’t that cool anymore, especially in the UK. But this is just me. It seems cooler to be into doing things now.