Three rules for technological fixes

Not all problems will yield to technology. Deciding which will and which won't should be central to setting innovation policy, say Daniel Sarewitz and Richard Nelson. Can we expect all of society's problems to yield to the fruits of scientific research and technological innovation? Historian Daniel Sarewitz and economist Richard Nelson say that we can't, and that we need to find ways of working out which problems to invest time and money on, and which are not ripe for a technological solution. To comment on this and other articles in our Innovation series, visit http://tinyurl.com/5uolx2 .