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

THE DEMON-HAUNTED WORLD
growth of mould; Watson and Crick weren't imagining the cure of
genetic diseases when they puzzled over the X-ray diffractometry
of DNA; Rowland and Molina weren't planning to implicate
CFCs in ozone depletion when they began studying the role of
halogens in stratospheric photochemistry.
Members of Congress and other political leaders have from
time to time found it irresistible to poke fun at seemingly
obscure scientific research proposals that the government is
asked to fund. Even as bright a senator as William Proxmire, a
Harvard graduate, was given to making episodic 'Golden
Fleece' awards, many commemorating ostensibly useless scientific
projects including SETI. I imagine the same spirit in
previous governments - a Mr Fleming wishes to study bugs in
smelly cheese; a Polish woman wishes to sift through tons of
Central African ore to find minute quantities of a substance she
says will glow in the dark; a Mr Kepler wants to hear the songs
the planets sing.
These discoveries and a multitude of others that grace and
characterize our time, to some of which our very lives are
beholden, were made ultimately by scientists given the opportunity
to explore what in their opinion, under the scrutiny of their
peers, were basic questions in Nature. Industrial applications, in
which Japan in the last two decades has done so well, are
excellent. But applications of what? Fundamental research,
research into the heart of Nature, is the means by which we
acquire the new knowledge that gets applied.
Scientists have an obligation, especially when asking for big
money, to explain with great clarity and honesty what they're
after. The Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) would have been
the preeminent instrument on the planet for probing the fine
structure of matter and the nature of the early Universe. Its price
tag was $10 to $15 billion. It was cancelled by Congress in 1993
after about $2 billion had been spent - a worst of both worlds
outcome. But this debate was not, I think, mainly about declining
interest in the support of science. Few in Congress understood
what modern high energy accelerators are for. They are not for
weapons. They have no practical applications. They are for
something that is, worrisomely from the point of view of many,
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