The Greatest Innovation

Spiked and Pfizer are asking:

'What's the Greatest Innovation?' is a survey of key thinkers in science, technology and medicine, conducted by spiked in collaboration with the research-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer. Contributors were asked to identify what they see as the greatest innovation in their field. More than a hundred experts and authorities have responded already, including half-a-dozen Nobel laureates.

The survey will roll through May and June, and the discussion will go live at an event in central London on Wednesday 6 June

What is the difference between innovation and discovery? This is what the press release says:

spiked's editor-at-large, Mick Hume, said: 'Some choose "sexy" looking innovations, others apologise for the apparent dullness of their arcane choices. But whatever the appearances, almost all of our respondents exude a sense of certainty about the improvement that innovations in their field are making to our world, and the potential for more of the same.'

Astronomer Stephen W Squyres said 'rockets capable of reaching space' were the obvious choice in his field, while developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert pointed out that without the microscope 'cells would not have been discovered'. Dr David Roblin, vice president of Pfizer Global R&D, hailed the 'modern clinical trial' as the greatest innovation in the field of medicine.

Sir Tim Hunt, Nobel laureate and principal scientist at Cancer Research UK, said recombinant DNA technology has made the biggest difference to the way biologists work today. 'We couldn't have gotten anywhere without it.'

Howard Garner, professor of cognition and education at Harvard, believes the 'cognitive revolution' was a major innovation: 'Researchers peered inside the black box and, through theoretical models and experimental interventions, attempted to describe the mental structures and processes that are - or give rise to - thoughts as well as behaviours.'

According to science writer Philip Ball, 'the essence of the molecular sciences is understanding the shape, structure, constitution, location and dynamics of molecules'. Therefore, he says, analytical tools such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and optical, electron and scanning-probe microscopies 'are quite simply what makes the discipline possible as a modern science'.

'"Random search" has revolutionised the checking of facts, the discovering of new information, the gleaning of leads', said science writer Matt Ridley, while Paul Parsons, editor of BBC Focus magazine, hailed 'anything that enables us to rub out our mistakes and correct them; to go back and put things right'.

While it is impossible to choose one single innovation mentioned in the spiked/Pfizer survey as the key moment in human history - whether it's the discovery of nuclear fusion, the invention of eye glasses with arms or text messaging - the survey itself marks some of the triumphs of human ingenuity.

According to Hume, 'the results of the survey hint at how much more could be achieved if there was a stronger cultural affirmation of the problem-solving potential of scientific experimentation and bold innovation'.

All good examples, but, none of them would be of much use today (or ever) without the computer and, importantly, without the Internet. And those are important innovations in EVERY field. My field would not even exist without continuous, long-term data-collection by computers. And enormity of data produced by computers could not be disseminated without the Internet - publication of summaries as papers is just not enough any more.