Is scientific research a good use of government funding when hospitals, schools and social services are suffering from tight budgets??

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There is a certain irony in seeing such a question posted online, typed in via a computer (or, for all I know, maybe some even more cutting-edge piece of handheld technology). Because, if wise men and women, the best part of a century ago, hadn't developed the principles of quantum mechanics, there could be no such things. At least not in anything like their current form: we'd still be on valves and transistors, or even cogs and pulleys... themselves the off-shoots of yet earlier scientific research. As for those hospitals you mention, had it not been for scientific research into human biology, they wouldn't have any treatments to offer their patients (in which case, it really wouldn't matter if their budgets were to be taken away altogether!). Gene therapy, for instance, clearly would not have been able to get off the ground if its developers had not possessed any conception of a 'gene' or understood the structure of DNA. But that is something that we owe to state-funded scientific research.

It is true that some research is deliberately tied to very specific technological applications -- and, consequently, such research is often funded by commercial interests. But even 'pure' scientific research does yield, in a more indirect way, results that can benefit every single part of society. The purer the science, the harder it is to predict what specific technological applications it might eventually issue, and so it is perfectly understandable that the corporations might be reluctant to fund it themselves. So it is lucky for us that someone -- government -- is willing to do so. Because, when I say that the consequences can benefit every single part of society, I really do mean every part. We comfortable folks in the developed world get to enjoy our computers and our fancy therapies. In the developing world, meanwhile, I guess the biggest global problem just lately has been the food crisis; and, more widely, climate change is a major worry, together, of course, with the perennial problems of malaria, cholera, AIDS, etc. Now, the question of whether or not there is a genuine will to solve such problems is a political matter, unfortunately resting on human foibles. But, as to whether there might be a way to solve them (and, if so, then what way that might be), for that I'd be inclined to look to the scientists.

As a rule of thumb: the chief value of scientific research lies in the fact that it facilitates technological research, and technological research leads in turn to colossal benefits for all of us. Personally, I'm quite excited about the Large Hadron Collider. Partly just out of a purely intellectual curiosity about the scientific results that it might issue; but also out of a more speculative kind of curiosity -- for I doubt I'll get to see them myself -- about the benefits that such an expansion in human knowledge might bring to society at large, the best part of a century from now.

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