Carl%20Sagan%20-%20The%20Demon%20Haunted%20World

Maxwell and The Nerds
United States lost its lead to Japan in most semiconductor
technologies. It experiences severe declines in market share in
colour TVs, VCRs, phonographs, telephone sets and machine
tools.
Basic research is where scientists are free to pursue their
curiosity and interrogate Nature, not with any short-term practical
end in view, but to seek knowledge for its own sake. Scientists of
course have a vested interest in basic research. It's what they like
to do, in many cases why they became scientists in the first place.
But it is in society's interest to support such research. This is how
the major discoveries that benefit humanity are largely made.
Whether a few grand and ambitious scientific projects are a better
investment than a larger number of small programmes is a
worthwhile question.
We are rarely smart enough to set about on purpose making the
discoveries that will drive our economy and safeguard our lives.
Often, we lack the fundamental research. Instead, we pursue a
broad range of investigations of Nature, and applications we never
dreamed of emerge. Not always, of course. But often enough.
Giving money to someone like Maxwell might have seemed the
most absurd encouragement of mere 'curiosity-driven' science,
and an imprudent judgement for practical legislators. Why grant
money now, so nerdish scientists talking incomprehensible gibberish
can indulge their hobbies, when there are urgent unmet
national needs? From this point of view it's easy to understand the
contention that science is just another lobby, another pressure
group anxious to keep the grant money rolling in so the scientists
don't ever have to do a hard day's work or meet a payroll.
Maxwell wasn't thinking of radio, radar and television when he
first scratched out the fundamental equations of electromagnetism;
Newton wasn't dreaming of space flight or communications
satellites when he first understood the motion of the Moon;
Roentgen wasn't contemplating medical diagnosis when he investigated
a penetrating radiation so mysterious he called it 'X-rays';
Curie wasn't thinking of cancer therapy when she painstakingly
extracted minute amounts of radium from tons of pitchblende;
Fleming wasn't planning on saving the lives of millions with
antibiotics when he noticed a circle free of bacteria around a
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