Building virtual networks of renegade scientists within fields of interest. We cannot expect mainstream will support deviant ideas and creativity out of the box. We have to take this issue in our own hands. Linked in and Research Gate are possibilities. Together with Drop Box were we can share and collect papers helping us to think out of the box. Mainstream always focusses on safe science and funding is always via the old boys networks...this most often leads to more of the same....

So reach out and create your own group of renegade scientists and start supporting eachother.....that would be my answer to this very important question.

Thanks, Jan. This will help, of course.

But I do hope that we can get some funding agencies involved. After all, this is their responsibility or objective, and they will get the credit later on.

Actually, your question, Lev, is damned powerful.

Do you realize that this incredible threshold is brought to us courtesy of the same political systems, universities, and other good forces that breed creativity and advance civilization and human freedom at the very same time.

Hats off to the US, Israel, and other democracies. In that order.

Eitan, thank you for the compliment , but . . . I don't believe we are on the same wave length. ;--)

Although I don't want to touch the politics, if anything we owe to the present "political systems, universities, and other good forces" the unnecessary prolongation of the present pre-transitional scientific and cultural period.

You envision a more perfect system?

Precisely! Because we have not seen one yet, this one, as everything else in the Universe, has to die and give way to a new one. Since we have seen so few political systems so far, why should we be afraid to experiment and try a new one?

OK. Try it.

But concentrate first on asking the great question you started with of policy makers.

I believe the current "maker" movement of DIY scientists, engineers, designers, artists et. al. are currently finding their own encouragement simply by doing the things they love but without the constraints of institutionalized science. The availability of free and open source tools to perform research that was once restricted to expensive laboratories has resulted in a huge upsurge in personally funded and crowd sourced projects, some of which are a little frightening. The variety of project types is truly staggering and range from simple home automation to full-blown genomics research. I have seen several projects for industrial strength gas lasers, scanning tunneling electron microscopes and even a virology lab set up in one individual's kitchen (scary).

Scott, this is not quite what I have in mind: the projects you mentioned are of incremental nature, while I am suggesting to address the really radical *scientific* ideas and projects. Of course, for many scientists it would be clear that there can only be very, very few of them that could possibly be productive.

What I'm trying to point out is that what you suggest is already occurring. Some of the projects I've seen are not just radical, but represent the very fringe of scientific experimentation. Some projects are based on well established scientific principles while others are based purely on wishful thinking. The entire spectrum of "radical" is represented in this DIY scientist movement. The open source nature of the tools required to perform genuine research is what provided the encouragement for that movement. I would say that if you're looking for additional ways to encourage ANY kind of research it would be to make the tools/techniques/principles required freely available because there are always individuals who are motivated to try it on their own.

I agree, self-organization is a useful path, but I'm also interested in how to engage the larger funding agencies in such activities: then one would be able to proceed at a much faster pace. And for the agencies, such small 'investments' will give much higher returns. After all, we are talking about something which should make the greatest difference to the society.

A lot of makers have pursued crowd sourcing. Many not only got the funding they asked for but in some cases they received considerably more. That entire ecosystem linking ideas with venture capital has reinvented itself as a social network rather than the old traditional, monolithic entities. It's really very exciting.

Go to the kickstarter website. There are a lot of projects there seeking crowd sourced funding. Many of those projects got more than they asked for. One project that seems particularly successful is http://getpebble.com/. It started out as a DIY project that has evolved into a commercial product. If there isn't currently a crowd sourcing site dedicated to funding pure research this could be an opportunity.

Hi Lev, Funding outofthebox science will be quite a challenge, as funding bodies mostly function as conservative building blocks creating more of the same...I would be interested to hear how to get funding for such ideas....

Thanks, Scott. I will definitely look into it.

Jan, I have to try to explain the agencies the above situation. The more they will think about it, the more, I believe, they will agree with my assessment of the present situation in science as pre-transitional.. The rest is much easier.

But to see this pre-transitional nature of science, one can explain what is happening, for example, in physics, biology, and artificial intelligence.

Hi Lev, I also noticed, due to the presence of Linked in and R-gate that to reach out to colleagues is much easier...I am currently preparing a paper on PPAR and renal protection together with an Iranian, Etheopean and Indian pharmacologist...and share all my articles via dropbox, meanwhile thousands...so we can also jump out of the box and infuse new viasta's via review articles in our scientific community (I agree, a small step, but one which defitely proves the power of virtual cooperations. And creativity lingers there....

Good!

By the way, what are the most convenient ways of creating working groups on the Internet requiring a very close interaction?

I agree that traditional funding for basic and exploratory research seems to be disappearing at an alarming rate. How do we keep governments interested in this type of work? and is it important or am I just too old fashioned?

Jonathan,

As a rule, government agencies are not the best places for bright people, but we cannot discount the optimistic possibility that there might be some who will take the lead, which will eventually make their career.

By the way, I'm not talking about a regular exploratory work but about some *very* radical but promising scientific ideas. Obviously there can be very, very few of those.