The future of science has been considered by a number of writers in recent years, from many different viewpoints.

• ‘The End of Science’ by Horgan, although praised for its writing and often enjoyed, has attracted mostly negative views from scientists.Typical are [https://www.its.caltech.edu/~bi/labinger/bookreviews/5horgan.pdf] and [http://www.ams.org/notices/199802/bookrev-hoffman.pdf] and [https://www.amazon.com/End-Science-Knowledge-Twilight-Scientific/dp/0465065929]. Views range from that he has not been fair in his writing, instead providing character assassinations of people he did not agree with, to unhappiness with his loose use of terms like ‘ironic science’ while his ‘gold medals’ of discoveries are arbitrary and chosen merely to prove his point. Typically lay readers enjoyed the book and felt it was quite truthful, while self professed scientists seem to view it as anathema
  Further thoughts by Horgan from 2015 when his book was re-released [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/was-i-wrong-about-8220-the-end-of-science-8221/] defends his view, saying it is focusing on how the ‘big’ bits of science are done and dusted and there haven’t been any huge discoveries since. He also mentions the rise of hyperbole in science to create artificial importance.

• A different view about the future is that science progress is accelerating. Kurzweil [http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns] in 2001 discussed this, looking at trends in biology like genome sequencing, and factors in cost. At least in these areas they showed an exponentially lower time to innovate the ‘next big thing’. Also further comment [http://singularityhub.com/2016/03/22/technology-feels-like-its-accelerating-because-it-actually-is/], contrasts with the opposite view that nothing has really changed since the 1970s [here].

• Continued growth in science, in 9 baseline developing nations
  [http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0151328]
  “Between 1993 and 2009, the total world investment on R&D grew from approximately $452 to $1,276.9 billions; an average growth of 6.7% each year (current Purchasing Power Parity—PPP values). In the same period, our baseline group of developing nations grew in absolute terms at almost double that rate (12.4%) almost tripling their level of expenses during this period. This increase is even larger in China, Turkey and Mexico, which increased their R&D investment at an average rate of 18.8%, 12.6% and 10.6%, respectively; these increments contrast especially with the US and the EU15, who had their expenditure growing much less (5.7% and 5.2%, respectively).”
  “A similar perspective exists for outputs. World scientific output, measured as the number of publications in the Web of Science, grew 4.2% each year, going from 682,064 in 1996 to 1,164,000 papers in 2009. In the same period, the baseline group once again grew at more than three times that rate (13%). China and Turkey grew at a higher rate than the world (17% and 16% respectively), while the EU15 grew at almost the world pace (3.5%) and the US and the Russian Federation had lower rates (2.3% and 0.2%, respectively).“

• Patenting trends
  We can look at filing of patents has changed in the recent decades, to get some measure of technological advances. This is a very blunt measure as frequently patents are about defending a companies space by extending small variants, however their significant costs to maintain do mean that serious thought is given as to if they are really useful.
  In the USA, patent filings have increased strongly since 2009 [http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/index.cfm/chapter-5/c5h.htm#s4], and across the world, this is also the case [http://www.wipo.int/edocs/pubdocs/en/wipo_pub_941_2015.pdf]. In the UK, patent filings have steadily dropped by a third since the early 2000s, though this may reflect the growing trend to file in the EU patent office.

• Increased age of recognition
  The average age of Nobel Prize winners is getting older [http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/11/18/big-breakthroughs-come-your-late-30s]. Similarly the age that scientists are elected to the prestigious Royal Society is also increasing, from 44 in 1940 to their 55 in 2010 [see The Royal Society and the Promotion of Science since 1960, by Peter Collins, Table A3 in https://books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=1107029260].