We haven't slowed down, its just that the game has changed. In the past 50-100 years, big ideas got the breakthroughs. Now its not about big ideas anymore, we have plenty of those. Its about big data. We do not have the computational resources (yet) to step up our research. In medical research, there are not "huge" discoveries anymore. Because we are dealing with a much smaller scale and a small discovery here and there doesn't "add up". I see people puzzling around signaling pathways. Its like each group picks one and then rides on it until the end of time. Its time to scale this up, not puzzle one pathway at once, mass research it. We are seeing this approach with genetic sequencing, cancer diagnosis or brain mapping. We generate HUGE amounts of data, without the time and computers to deal with that data. Its not about that guy who thinks hard enough about a problem until he screams EUREKA! and sprints to the lab to do that one experiment that will change the course of biology for the next 50 years. Its about deciphering the masses of data that we are producing and then looking for patterns in them. At least that is what I believe :)This is a testament to anyone today who thinks we haven't moved forward, or have slowed down in comparison to these "golden ages" of discovery.