>
>The depressing thing is that anyone can still adhere to the "science is
>different" mentality.

While there would appear to be a great deal of useful overlap between
science and technology, surely science is the quest to understand the
world while technology harnesses that understanding for our own
purposes?  We can't change the world with science - rather, science
changes us and our understanding - but we can with technology.  I
admit to Chris Stokes that I am working on the basis of dictionary
definitions here (OED online) but I am intrigued to know from where
else we are to take our definitions, and how else we are to arrive at
them if we don't trace "the historic meanings and senses of words
through analysis of historic quotations."  Do we make them up to suit
ourselves at the time?  If each of us does that, then how can other
people be sure what we are talking about?

>
>There are just so many other dangers in seeing science as separate from its
>applications. It begins with the "why do it?" question.
>
>If it isn't to achieve something, that is applications, then perhaps it
>should receive funding at the same level as opera, one of my other favourite
>destinations for public money.

John Polanyi puts it quite elegantly:

"It is folly to use as one's guide in the selection of fundamental
science the criterion of utility. Not because (scientists)...
despise utility. But because. .. useful outcomes are best identified
after the making of discoveries, rather than before."
Excerpt from the keynote address to the Canadian Society for the
Weizmann Institute of Science, Toronto June 2, 1996.  (Concerning the
allocation of research funds.)
(taken from http://naturalscience.com/dsqhome.html)

I agree that it would be irresponsible for a scientist who happened
across a discovery that could be put to good use simply to leave it
in the lab book rather than sharing it with the world.  However, if
we only do research that we think is going to be useful, we are
ignoring all the things we don't yet know about, which could be very
useful and interesting.

>
>Rare is the scientist who does not, in these money pressed times, promise
>that their science will be of some use to someone. And this is not just a
>bid to get money. I was talking to a researcher yesterday who was just the
>latest of many who have told me that they are dead chuffed when someone in
>industry is interested in their work. Is there anyone out there who really
>is just in it to satisfy their own urges?

That would be very hard to tell nowadays, since anyone who admitted
to it would be (a) ridiculed (judging by this discussion, anyway) and
(b) risking not having any funding.

>
>The use of the science is, of course, the whole point of the debate. The
>"pure" researcher simply cannot wash their hands of the outcome of their
>work. "Not me guv. Someone else filled the syringe. I just sold the drug."

So it's a scientist's fault if they make discoveries concerning
nuclear physics and then someone else chooses to use them to make an
atom bomb?  This would seem a very good way of discouraging anyone
from trying to make their science applicable.

Best wishes,
--
Katie Brooks
Institute of Cell, Animal and Population Biology
University of Edinburgh
Kings Buildings
West Mains Road
Edinburgh EH9 3JT
UK

Work tel: +44 (0)131 650 7289
Work fax: +44 (0)131 650 7322
Mobile: +44 (0)7884 434340

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