An interview with Walter Gilbert:

EXCERPT

We are spending money on problems that can have immediate outcomes. Then we are forced to use only our current level of understanding. There is a lot that what we don't know. Imagine that if we had asked Benjamin Franklin to justify the importance of the "spark" he had found, would we have had electricity today?

Another major problem is the explosion in scientific manpower that has not necessarily led to the betterment of science, especially in biology. In fact, bad material that gets published has increased. In biology, the top journals – Cell, Science and Nature – have created a mess. They tell the authors "give me the headline, not the data". And then we see retractions and shattered careers and dreams.

SOURCE

http://theconversation.com/noble-laureate-big-data-and-full-genome-analysis-not-all-theyre-cracked-up-to-be-31992