In a perfect world, scientists share problems and work together on solutions for the good of society. In the real world, however, that's usually not the case. The main obstacles: competition for publication and intellectual property protection.
Is there a model for encouraging large-scale scientific problem solving? Yes, and it comes from an unexpected and unrelated corner of the universe: open source software development.
Sharing helps everyone to do better; if you don't believe it, ask a grade schooler. This turns out to be true in business as well. There was study not long ago (I don't have a link) that found the people who cooperate with others do better at work than people who keep their work private.
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As another example of "emergent" rather than "centralized/imposed" innovation/quality is this recent finding that, overall, Wikipedia is just as accurate as the venerable Britannica: http://news.com.com/2100-1038_3-5997332.html
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