to destruction, analyzing what broke [...] and repeating the process". Scientific explanations often follow technological developments rather than preceding them. Many discoveries also arose from pure chance, like the discovery of penicillin as a result of accidental lab contamination. Since the 1960s, the assumption that government funding of basic research would lead to the discovery of marketable technologies has lost credibility. Probabilist Nassim Taleb argues that national research programs that implement the notions of serendipity and convexity through frequent trial and error are more likely to lead to useful innovations than research that aims to reach specific outcomes. Despite this, modern technology is increasingly reliant on deep, domain-specific scientific knowledge. In 1979, an average of one in three patents granted in the U.S. cited the scientific literature; by 1989, this increased to an average of one citation per patent. The average was skewed upwards by patents related to the pharmaceutical industry, chemistry, and electronics. A 2021 analysis shows that patents that are based on scientific discoveries are on average 26% more valuable than equivalent non-science-based patents. Other animal species The use of basic technology is also a feature of non-human animal species. Tool use was once considered a defining characteristic of the genus Homo. This view was supplanted after discovering evidence of tool use among chimpanzees and other primates, dolphins, and crows. For example, researchers have observed wild chimpanzees using basic foraging tools, pestles, levers, using leaves as sponges, and tree bark or vines as probes to fish termites. West African chimpanzees use stone hammers and anvils for cracking nuts, as do capuchin monkeys of Boa Vista, Brazil. Tool use is not the only form of animal technology use; for example, beaver dams, built with wooden sticks or large stones, are a technology with "dramatic" impacts on river habitats and ecosystems. Popular culture The relationship of humanity with technology has been explored in science-fiction literature, for example in Brave New World, A Clockwork Orange, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Isaac Asimov's essays, and movies like Minority Report, Total Recall, Gattaca, and Inception. It has spawned the dystopian and futuristic cyberpunk genre, which juxtaposes futuristic technology with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Notable cyberpunk works include William Gibson's Neuromancer novel, and movies like Blade Runner, and The Matrix. See also References Citations Sources Main topic articles