The Value of Science

Last week's West Wing episode really did a neat job about the value of science and research. I didn't like that they made Ellie the stereotypical "give me a microscope and a solitary lab and leave me the hell alone" scientist attitude, but you can't win 'em all. I was stunned watching that episode when some congresswoman made a comment that revealed pretty clearly that she begrudged AIDS research - due to, I suppose, some implied perception of the lifestyle of AIDS-sufferers. I had no idea that certain people would willingly cut all funding for AIDS and HIV research. Granted, these persons would shove the money at breast cancer and Alzheimer's research and such, so they're not completely heartless, but still.

I saw this episode just a day after a two people in my crit group told me that they thought we'd be beyond Mars by 2075 and that it was silly to set my story there. They said it's been done to death, and we'd likely be someplace cooler. I was more than a little surprised at this response. I can understand the "it's been done, move on" reaction. But Mars isn't the point of my story. The point of my story is the social and scientific conundrums we'll be dealing with in 2075, a time that I think space travel will be moving out of infancy and into mainstream - or at least it's plausible for it to happen by then. And Mars and the Moon are the only likely places for us to be by then. I don't want my novel set on the Moon because that's too close to Earth. And I want it set on a planet, not a space station. So Mars is the only option. Unless we get some sort of miraculous discovery in space flight. I'm not holding my breath.

But their response got me thinking. Scientifically speaking, we have the capability to be on the moon already. We have the capability to have a better and bigger space station. We have the capability to have more drugs and cures for all sorts of medical maladies. But science doesn't exist in a vacuum (well, unless you're in space, I suppose). Science shouldn't exist in a vacuum. It's a bad idea for any one thing in this world to not have some system of checks and balances. Science is no different. If it means science gets held back in a lot of areas, we'll have to live with it and work with the reality of the world science exists in to make whatever progress we can.

That's why I don't get Andi's attitude about space exploration. I would think someone so concerned about the oceans would be very excited about the past existence of water on another planet. If we're so keen on saving Earth's waters, maybe it might help to know how the same waters vanished on Mars. But she's right, there are a lot of worthy causes that aren't getting funding they deserve. And it's a hard pill to swallow to watch money being spent elsewhere in a seemingly less important area of research. Here's the thing with science, though: it's hard to know where the big, life-improving, earth-conserving discoveries will come from. Science is nothing if not serendipitous. Who would've thought that past pollution of the environment with man-made chemicals would lead to the discovery of bacteria that can survive on such toxic substances? The negative effect of one area of research led to the positive result of another. Science is the pursuit of truth. Limit the scope of science, and you limit the scope of the truth you will find. Limited truth will not help humanity or the rest of the animal kingdom or the Earth as a whole. We have to go forward with our eyes wide open to everything. The little string that you find buried in the dirt could eventually weave its way far into the future where it turns out to be the trigger for a life-saving machine. To ignore the string when you see it out of the corner of your eye could be disastrous.

But watching good, promising research lose funding is hard. It's just as hard as watching education lose funding, or seeing the strange ways in which money is spent: billions of dollars for space exploration, but we've got a lower class barely surviving and the state of health care for even the middle class is frightening. If I had my way, we'd start our budgets by making sure good education and quality health care were available free for everyone. Then we'd hash out where the rest of the money would go.

Science has long-since gotten used to the vagaries of funding. Scientists know how to squeeze the most out of every dime. They know how to get to the bottom of their puzzles even with one hand tied behind their back. Every puzzle is worth studying. Even physics. I've hated electromagnetism since I first tried to learn about it high school. Yet here I am, applying for a job in a physical science department so I can help those scientists communicate their research. I have no idea why we should give a rat's ass about the heat capacity of a two-component superfluid Fermi gas. I can't wait to find out. Because science always has the potential for practical application. It may not be all that obvious, like the purpose of that string, buried in the dirt. But that potential is there, and it will be found and applied to something else that brings a step closer to something we need to know about the universe. I can't begrudge the funding this project gets just because a project that has a more direct practical application is losing funding. It's all going to balance out eventually. The truth will be found and put to good use. Maybe not in my day, maybe we'll get it horribly wrong in the process, but we'll get there and find a whole slew of new puzzles waiting for us.