The IVS tackles the breakthrough problem through a complementary vehicle. The program of funding of transformative proposals now under development by the granting agencies gives risky ideas a chance to prove their merit. That is the first step. A critical second step is to advance the ideas that show promise — to assure that the best of the transformative ideas can gain enough traction to attract the attention of the respective scientific community, for until that happens even the most compelling of revolutionary ideas will languish in obscurity, as many now do.

 

Getting the attention of scientists within a field under challenge is a central goal of the IVS. That is a formidable problem because any challenge to a scientist's (or anyone's) foundational belief system is seen as a threat. It jeopardizes their scientific standing. Dismissing the challenger with a wave of the hand has been an expedient response, and those scientists who would not follow are branded as naïve; they are pressured to cooperate, like the rest. Collective dismissal is too often welcomed by members of the collective group, for dismissal lends a measure of reassurance for the prevailing idea. Everyone is happy — except the challenger, who is unable to gain appreciable ground even if his or her proposal is far reaching.

 

Dismissive treatment of challenge is not new. It is an expected feature of human nature that has been in evidence over the ages. In the past, however, challengers could sometimes succeed; they could prevail because success was merely a matter of convincing an intimate group of influential scientific leaders, who were few in number. Achieving success today has become, ironically, more formidable because the scientific enterprise has grown to be so massive. It is no longer a matter of convincing a few, but of convincing huge masses whose collective influence and control over funds is daunting. As a consequence, few potential breakthrough ideas ever come to fruition.

 

The number of unconventional schools of thought around today is surprisingly large. Those who take the trouble to look will find meaningful alternatives distributed throughout practically all domains of science, many of them rich with promise. All but a few are ignored or repressed by the prevailing orthodoxy — either because of perceived threats to self-interest or because of suspicion stemming from a cultural bias that fundamental discoveries are no longer possible. These unconventional schools of thought represent potentially ripe fruit, waiting to be plucked.

 

Of course this problem has exceptions; some scientific fruits have been plucked in recent times, but the process has invariably taken decades. A couple of examples:

 

• One example is the concept of “jumping genes” pioneered by Barbara McClintock. Shunned by colleagues and left in isolation for decades, McClintock was ultimately vindicated in the early 1980s with a Nobel Prize. Her work on transposons was finally recognized as one of the momentous discoveries of modern biology. Even in the popular literature, McClintock stands as a symbol of dissent against an intolerant establishment.

 

• Another example is Peter Mitchell.  Mitchell won the Nobel Prize in 1978 for chemiosmosis, which describes how cells transduce energy in the form of ATP. Like McClintock, Mitchell was for many years ridiculed as an eccentric iconoclast. Yet, because of his wealth, he could press on in his home laboratory. Eventually, his view prevailed, and this eccentric iconoclast became something of a scientific folk hero.

 

These two examples — crazy ideas turned received wisdom — are representative of the many ideas currently out there. Those two succeeded. But the overwhelming majority of them have not succeeded — some certainly because they are unworthy, but others because they simply could not manage to attract the scientific community's consideration that is necessary for active debate and evaluation. This inability may stem from the community’s skepticism over any revolutionary idea; or, it may stem from a perception that the idea is too worthy, thus inspiring fear and resistance. These high-risk ideas constitute low hanging fruit, presently well hidden in secret gardens insulated by high fences, whose locations remain unknown except to a select few. These ripe fruits have thus been difficult to pluck.

 

Gathering this potentially rich harvest is a challenge much like that faced by venture capitalists: These capitalists bet on a series of promising ideas, investing enough in each one to bridge across the dreaded “valley of death” and test each ideas’ real potential. A significant fraction of these investments are expected to fail while others may succeed — some so magnificently (Amazon, Google, luggage-with-wheels) that the failed bets are adequately hedged and the strategy inevitably wins in the long run.

 

A similar risk-taking strategy could harvest the many promising scientific ideas that now languish in obscurity. Society can’t afford to wait for the decades that may be required for those few breakthroughs that might make it to realization on their own steam. Our problems need solutions now. Obvious problems lie in health, energy and environment. But the problems extend to all of science, for history has shown that unexpected findings in any field can impact other fields, particularly in health.

 

Some entity needs to seek out and collect the best of these low-hanging scientific fruits, nurture them to maturity, and launch them into fair competition with the prevailing schools of thought to see if they have enough merit to prevail. This approach closely parallels the venture-capital approach, except that the venture here is not business but science. The results could be similarly powerful even if the successes were few, for those few could be as earth shaking as the discovery of radioactivity or the hole in the ozone layer.

 

Pursuing such a bold investment strategy for science requires an instrument designed specifically for such. The design needs to differ from that of traditional science-funding mechanisms; it should be unencumbered by irrelevant philosophies or existing bureaucratic constraints. That entity is the Institute for Venture Science.