First Principles - Sustainable Design: The Science of Sustainability and Green Engineering - page 75

in his work Science, the Endless Frontier , through two aphorisms. The first was that
“basic research is performed without thought of practical ends.” According to
Bush, basic research is to contribute to “general knowledge and an understanding
of nature and its laws.” Seeing an inevitable conflict between research to increase
understanding and research geared toward use, he held that “applied research
invariably drives out pure.” 7
Today, Bush's “rugged individual approach” has been replaced by a paradigm
of teamwork. Here the emphasis in design has evolved toward a cooperative ap-
proach. This is conceptualized by Frank LeFasto and Carl Larson, who in their
topic When Teams Work Best hold that teams are “groups of people who design
new products, stage dramatic productions, climb mountains, fight epidemics, raid
crack houses, fight fires” 8 or pursue an unlimited list of present and future ob-
jectives. The paradigm recognizes that to be effective, we need not only groups
of people who are technically competent but also those who are good at collab-
orating with one another to realize a common objective. 9 If we are to succeed

by the new paradigm, we have to act synergistically.
According to Stokes, “the differing goals of basic and applied research make
these types of research conceptually distinct.” 10 Basic research is defined by the
fact that it seeks to widen understanding of the phenomena of a scientific field—it
is guided by the quest to further knowledge. While Bush felt that basic and applied
research were in discord at least to some degree, Stokes points out that “the belief
that the goals of understanding and use are inherently in conflict, and that the
categories of basic and applied research are necessarily separate, is itself in tension
with the actual experience of science.” 11 To support this claim, many influential
works of research are in fact driven by both of these goals. A prime example is
the work of Louis Pasteur, who both sought to understand the microbiological
processes he discovered and to apply this understanding to the prevention of the
spoilage of vinegar, beer, wine, and milk, 12 Pasteur engaged in “whole mind”
thinking as mentioned in Chapter 1.
Similarly, these goals of understanding and use are very closely related, as Stokes
notes: The traditional fear of earthquakes, storms, droughts, and floods brought
about the scientific fields of seismology, oceanic science, and atmospheric science.
However, the idea that there is disparity between basic and applied research is
captured in the “linear model” of the dynamic form of the postwar paradigm.
It is important to keep in mind, though, that in the dynamic flow model, each
successive stage depends on the stage before it (see Fig. 2.11). Note the similarity
of this model with the stepwise design model discussed in Chapter 1.

Figure 2.11 Progression from
basic research to product or
system realization.

Basic
research

Applied
research

Production
and operations

Development