Three endeavors should be considered in the future to help foster the Institute’s goals: (i) an educational component; (ii) an in-house research component; and (iii) a parallel entity to support technologies emerging from these discoveries.

 

(i) Today’s educational system teaches students to accept textbook material as ground truth. Building on those ground truths, graduates go on to solve scientific problems. If those “ground truths” are valid, then those solutions may be correct; if they are not valid, then the “solutions” may mislead — as demonstrated in pre-Galileo era. The IVS exists on the presumption that many “generally accepted” truths might not be valid. New truths are sought. Hence, the truth-accepting, acquiescent, culture emerging from current educational system is opposite the questioning culture on which the Institute is founded.

 

A new educational model can train future scientists more effectively:

 

• The system focuses on  applicants who have demonstrated motivation for, and sincere interest in, science.

 

• It educates those students broadly. Current educational programs create narrow super-specialists. Super-specialists are poorly equipped to solve most problems: Unless the solution to a problem happens to lie within one’s narrow window of expertise, that solution might be missed. Broad education grounds students in diverse disciplines including the creative disciplines, equipping them to look broadly for the best solution.

 

• The system educates students to question assumptions. A proposed student exercise will teach students to objectively evaluate even broadly accepted scientific principles. For example, the student may choose Bernoulli’s principle. He/she will trace the origin and rationale for this principle, review all objections (dissenters exist for almost all scientific principles), evaluate the worth of those objections, and draw conclusions as to the level of confidence we can have in the principle’s validity. Performing this exercise for several foundational principles will teach the student that not all principles can be automatically accepted as ground truth; their domains of validity need proper evaluation.

 

Educating motivated students to be broad and inquisitive will prepare graduates for careers that fit squarely within the IVS framework. Graduates should be equipped to tackle the most challenging problems of science. This educational program might begin small, and evolve over time, perhaps into a university. Its operating principles could constitute a badly needed model for other universities to follow: current educational systems are under attack, at least in the US; the proposed system might serve as a creative response. Some change is evidently needed, and the IVS educational model could serve as the focal point for that change.

 

(ii) A second initiative is an in-house research unit. Current research institutions are ill equipped to accommodate scientists pursuing unconventional approaches. Those scientists are often treated as pariahs, shunned by traditional scientists and sometimes forcibly ejected from their ranks. An example is the late Halton Arp, a controversial astrophysicist trained at Harvard and CalTech, whose questioning of the “Big Bang” theory terminated his access the telescope he had been using, forcing a move abroad to continue his research.

 

An in-house laboratory could constitute a think tank, where scientists cross-fertilize and pursue what they think important. It could serve as a suitable place for graduates of the training program (section i, above) to pursue their creative ideas. The laboratory might function as did the legendary Bell Telephone Laboratories, where gifted scientists and engineers working in an open atmosphere succeeded in creating scientific breakthroughs that spawned earth-shaking inventions, ranging from the transistor to the laser. The in-house laboratory could function similarly.

 

(iii) A third initiative garners support for emerging new technologies. The transformative research supported by the IVS intends to produce breakthroughs in science. Many of those scientific breakthroughs will spawn ideas for technological and health-care advances spread over a wide industrial base. Developing those technologies needs support. Venture capitalists typically prefer investments likely to produce short-term gains. Product ideas coming from revolutionary science may be riskier and may therefore require longer-term investments that venture capitalists are reluctant to pursue. We envision a vehicle for funding those long-term investments: the "Institute for Venture Technologies," or IVT.

 

Distinct from the IVS, the IVT can be a for-profit institution. Investors donate funds to set up the IVT in much the same way as they donate to the IVS. In the IVT, however, investors may eventually profit from the success of the funded ventures in the same way as venture capitalists may profit.

 

One feature of the IVT (at least initially) is that funds could be awarded only to IVS awardees. Knowing they will have potential support for commercialization should encourage awardees to think seriously about inventions. Another possible feature is that instead of making funding judgments based solely on likelihood of commercial success, decisions can be based on potential long-term benefits to humanity.

 

In these ways, the IVT can be the natural complement to the IVS — the scientific investment’s practical fulfillment and realization. The two Institutes could be loosely linked, but administrative separation is critical in order to avoid the potential for the IVS to make funding decisions based on eventual profit potential. Any such prospect could compromise the very purpose of the IVS.

 

On the other hand, technological innovations spawned by the IVT could prove the IVS’s ultimate worth to the world. Those innovations could impact everyone. It goes without saying that the expected outpouring of new technology from the IVT could re-invigorate the world’s sagging economic engine.

 

Setting up these three additional programs will be major endeavors, best attempted after the IVS has matured and energies can be properly directed toward new endeavors. Waiting several years before considering the pursuit these initiatives seems sensible.