It Is Time for ‘Big Science’ in SQF Research: The Questions Are Important Enough and the Potential Harms of ‘Small Science’ Great Enough

Abstract

In physics (Giudice, 2012), medicine (Rappuoli and Medaglini, 2014), and other areas of science (e.g. Schimel and Keller, 2015), ‘big science’ has become a key way in which disciplines advance rapidly to answer key societal concerns. The Merriam Webster Dictionary (n.d.) defines big science as ‘large-scale scientific research consisting of projects funded usually by a national government or group of governments’. The term appears to have been coined by Alvin Weinberg, Director of Research at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, during the period of the Manhattan Project (‘Big Science Comes of Age’, 1999; Esparza and Yamada, 2007). At Oak Ridge, he was the director of research for a staff of 800, and played a key role in the development of the atomic bomb. In a 1961 article, Science, he wrote about big science as the modern equivalent of the achievements of building great cathedrals of the Middle Ages (Weinberg, 1961). While big science in physics and medicine often involves large-scale investment in expensive infrastructure, the key idea in big science is the importance of large-scale public investment in scientific work to answer questions that are of key importance to society, and without which society is likely to experience significant harm.