The Myth and the Magic

"I think it, therefore it is." (... true, that is)

Descartes didn't say that.

However many a modern day magical thinker believes it.

8 JUSTICE KENNEDY: Suppose I thought - and,
9 again, it's just a thought because I don't have the
10 expertise - that any computer group of people sitting
11 around a coffee shop in Silicon Valley could do this
12 over a weekend.

In other words:
The Myth of Basic Science
("The implications of this new way of seeing technology—as an autonomous, evolving entity that continues to progress whoever is in charge—are startling. People are pawns in a process. We ride rather than drive the innovation wave. Technology will find its inventors, rather than vice versa.")
Blogger's Note: So I need not have bothered writing this piece because inevitably someone else would have. And you need not have read this piece because inevitably someone else would have (read the other chap's piece). Pawns are expendable. Sit back, relax and just chew your cud.

Or is the rebuttal the correct point of view?
The “myth” of basic science?
("This is a profound misunderstanding of how basic science is translated into useful products. For instance, it is true that there were steam engines before the laws of thermodynamics were worked out, ... In turn, engineering improvements in the steam engine contributed to the understanding of thermodynamics during the 19th century. ... Basically, Ridley postulates the “myth” of basic science as a means of arguing that current patent policy is too stringent and protects monopoly")

Blogger's Note: So let's unilaterally disarm. Throw away our patent laws. Throw away our inventors and their cunning draftsmen lawyers. Sit back and wait for Them to inevitably invent. Piss in our pants when They arrive on our shores with their new inventions ... and then annihilate "Us" slackers. Good idea. Brilliant. Thank you Little Anthony and Clarence the Clown.

Is "innovation" inevitable?
Do patents "stifle" it?
Is the individual inventor irrelevant?
Another Edison or Bell would have surely come along?
Another Newton, Einstein, Darwin, Galileo was queued up and ready to go?

On whose shores?