Calculating the properties like Charge Density Waves (CDW), Parity Density Waves (PDW), Fermi surfaces, electron-phonon coupling, etc using DFPT is currently the best we have. The results are many times comparable to the experimental side of things. And while many holes still need to be fixed (look at the magnetic moment for example, this is just handwaving your theoretical parameters to fit the experiment), the funding and progression in the field is only becoming larger. (I’m talking about DFT here, but that can be said for the other theories for material science).

However, to do good science in my opinion we also need to be able to confirm it through experiments, it is the ultimate benchmark to check the theoretical results, and without it, it is like solving a puzzle in the dark. It is essential for the improvement of current theories. So while his arguments are very sound, doing “the design of new materials” without experimentation is not the way to go. (I just want to stress that these are opinions..)

I’ve already heard about the materials project, and projects such as this are the way forward to bring all the knowledge together, in the end, I’m against paying for access to publications and paying 90 euros for a scientific textbook that you use twice. Knowledge should be freely available and his mindset is exactly what I think should be happening.