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Comment by thomas11 | Hacker News Reader

But how does digging up dinosaur bones in China contribute to technological advancement or productivity increases? Mind you, I'm all for science, but there are certain kinds of science that could be put on the back burner for a while in a financially tight situation.

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Nobody knows whether it will or not---the most revolutionary discoveries tend to come from unexpected places. As far as I'm concerned, an atmosphere where science has to justify itself as practical is just asking for all the really revolutionary discoveries to be made elsewhere.

Conflict of interest statement: I am a pure science graduate student, so take my opinions on science funding with an aliquot of NaCl.

It's also possible that the general acceptance and promotion of intellectual curiosity results in a culture in which more scientific discoveries are made.

In general, you wouldn't know what a new discovery would contribute to technological advancement or productivity increases :) If you did, it's arguably because the research you're doing is an incremental improvement over something already existing, rather than something entirely new (not that there's anything bad with doing either of those things.)

Putting these kinds of things on the back burner may be a good thing only if you're sure that the money being spent on it will be used for something more necessary/efficient/whatever.

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