Is Discovery v/s Invention the Wrong Debate?

In his book, Why We Work, Barry Schwartz makes an interesting point about discoveries:

“When a scientist, or anyone else, discovers something, it doesn’t occur to us to ask whether that discovery should exist… If someone were to suggest that the Higgs boson shouldn’t exist, we’d wonder what mind-altering substance he’d ingested.”

And inventions?

“Inventions, in contrast, are a whole other story. Inventions characteristically have moral dimensions. We routinely ask whether they should exist. We wonder what’s good (life improving) about them, and what the drawbacks are. We debate whether their wide distribution should go forward, and if so, with what kind of regulation.”

Ok, so there’s nothing new or interesting in what’s said above. Where it gets interesting is in what happens next:

“Discoveries tell us things about how the world works. Inventions use those discoveries to create objects or processes that make the world work differently. The discovery of pathogens leads to the invention of antibiotics. The discovery of nuclear energy leads to bombs, power plants, and medical procedures.”

So there is a connection from discovery to making changes to the world, just that it is a second order connection. Why doesn’t that connection bother people as much as the first order connection from invention to making changes to the world?

-          Is it laziness? Second order thinking takes a lot more effort;

-          Or is it the difficulty? Second order thinking requires two guesses:

a)     What might be invented based on that discovery?

b)     And then how those inventions would impact the world?

I’d never thought of the “cater/create” debate as a variant of the discovery v/s invention topic, until Schwartz mentions it:

“Does the market cater to consumer desires or does it create consumer desires? Do the media cater to people’s tastes in news and entertainment or do the media create those tastes? We are all accustomed to the difficulties surrounding discussion of these issues in modern society, and we may all have fairly strong opinions about the “cater/create” debate.”

Since all forms of the discovery v/s invention debate have major consequences on the world (first order or second order), perhaps we should step away from the linguistic/philosophical debate and focus more on the consequences aspect. Just a thought…