I wonder how much of the fact that there hasn't been any fundamental breakthroughs in the last fifty years has to do with the effective takeover of science by academics and government - that is by the signaling and control view. Maybe we have too many "accredited" scientists and they are too beholden to government, and to a lesser extent other grant-making organizations - and they have crowded out or controlled real, idealistic science.

If this is so, then there should be an observable effect when comparing between countries, shouldn't there? Hard to see how one country having massive academic/government control of science could affect all other countries to an equal level. Oughtn't there be research on this? It's an obvious question and has equally obvious ideological value, so funding wouldn't be such an issue.

Nobel laureates is one possible metric: http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/peo_nob_pri_lau_percap-nobel-prize-laureates-per-capita Looks pretty much like one would expect: a bias towards northern Europe (likely in part due to Literature & Peace), and then G8 countries. Only #3, Switzerland, is a country I've ever heard as having a relatively small government.

Or here's a statistical study of scientific papers published per nation: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=190149 US, then UK, then Japan, then Germany & France. All places with very large powerful governments.

I suppose you could explain both those away as being already corrupted (#1) and entirely unrelated to actual scientific productivity (especially of breakthroughs), but then you're paddling upstream...