THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETY

Denoting the emerging new era as the post-scientific society suggests, of course, that the United States is moving ahead from a prior scientific society. I believe that a convincing case can be made that in the second half of the 20th century, the United States became a scientific society.

The United States emerged as a world industrial power in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, largely owing to the inspired work of practical people. Although the United States had pockets of scientific research and expertise in certain fields and sectors, the large manufacturing corporations that were at the center of growing U.S. wealth were based on practical inventions, on technologies borrowed from European companies, and on improvements made on the factory floor through trial and error.

During this early period, a small number of large corporations, such as AT&T, General Electric, DuPont, and General Motors, set up formal R&D departments, inspired by Thomas Edison’s “invention factory” at Menlo Park, New Jersey, established in 1876. However, such laboratories were not common, and U.S. universities produced very few graduates with advanced degrees in the natural sciences and even fewer in engineering.