Economic gains vs Scientific posterity

[Byzantine Prince]

Which is more important for us as individual human beings? Economic gains on one hand give prosperity and material comforts while scientific discoveries over us symbolic knowledge of the world or the nature of the world. This came to me when I saw this:

link - CNN (http://edition.cnn.com/2005/TECH/science/12/06/indonesia.new.species.reut/index.html)

[Lazul]

A balance, civilization wont last long without a stable economy and it wont last long with no scientific breakthroughs. :bow:

[A.Saturnus]

Wisdom is power, therefore science creates power. Economy is just playing with that power.

[Phatose]

Symbolic knowledge of the world is often key to all nature of economic benefits. Focusing on applied research and ignoring the just-because basic inquistiveness kind of research doesn't work. That symbolic knowledge is often neccessary for any real leaps forward.

Ultimately, symbolic knowledge often leads to economic benefits, while economic benefits rarely lead to symbolic knowledge. Shouldn't be hard to figure out which one should carry the greater weight.

[Byzantine Prince]

Thanks for the responces. :bow:

Perhaps you missed it but I specifically asked if we as individual human beings should care more about some symbolic knowedge that probably will never affect us or our prosperity and comfort.

[Strike For The South]

Money.

[LeftEyeNine]

SFTS, I adore your way of self-expression.

[bmolsson]

Money buy's science, therefore get yourself a shit load of money and buy anything else you need..... Works for me.... ~;)

[Kanamori]

Knowledge of absolutes could be depressing. Give me the money and my happy ignorance please.~:)

[Kaiser of Arabia]

The Economic gains.

Science is wrong [at least] half the time, anyway.
Plus, money is power, power is life.

[Papewaio]

You are all using the internet... HTML developed out of the need for particle physicists to share knowledge... you never know when in the pursuit of science something will spinoff to become a day to day technology.

Science, technology and economics are all multipliers that can be used on other things and themselves.

So as wealth increases so does the ability (surplus) appear to pursue science. As science increases so does the number of 'levers', these levers make economic gains for us, increasing wealth.

Check out those societies that are against secular knowledge and unless they have oil or mineral wealth they are poor both in wealth and social ability... war torn in short.

[Kanamori]

So as wealth increases so does the ability (surplus) appear to pursue science.

Or to be happily ignorant.~;)

[Byzantine Prince]

You are all using the internet... HTML developed out of the need for particle physicists to share knowledge... you never know when in the pursuit of science something will spinoff to become a day to day technology.

Science, technology and economics are all multipliers that can be used on other things and themselves.

So as wealth increases so does the ability (surplus) appear to pursue science. As science increases so does the number of 'levers', these levers make economic gains for us, increasing wealth.

Check out those societies that are against secular knowledge and unless they have oil or mineral wealth they are poor both in wealth and social ability... war torn in short.
Yes yes yes... but aren't novelty scientific explorations like the one on the first post that show no promise for something new really being accomplished to make money rather out of the scope of what you said?

[Papewaio]

I don't think science should be done purely because we get an immediate economic benefit.

Nor in the act of exploration do we have any idea what will spin off a technology or a new economic benefit... if we knew in the first place we wouldn't be exploring and it wouldn't then be science.

What if this new animal helps us understand evolution?
What if it is immune to cancer?
What if it makes a cute pet?
What if it is immortal and we can splice that gene into ourselves?

Learning is life, life is learning.

[Phatose]

And it's certainly worth remembering that a great majority of these technologies we employ are only usable as a result of core research done for pure intellectual curosity. The entire science of electromagnetism was a result of work done solely because somebody thought it was cool. Without it though, kiss pretty much all modern tech goodbye. It's very very hard to tell what eventual results apparently useless basic research will have, and even harder to have any real technolical innovation based solely on focused development. The Queen of England couldn't call in researchers in 1880 and say make me a wireless communication device and get radio. You need the basic research done without any presumptions of economic value to get that.

[yesdachi]

Science is kind a funny because you usually don’t know if a new discovery will be useful until you… discover it. ~;)

Scientific investment is sometimes pretty risky as the returns are not always what you might have hoped for. Some “research” is rather questionable IMO and is sometimes probably more of an excuse to go on vacation than for learning but if people are willing to float the cash and someone is willing to do the work who am I to say you shouldn’t research the breading habits of some weird color frog.~:)

[A.Saturnus]

Thanks for the responces. :bow:

Perhaps you missed it but I specifically asked if we as individual human beings should care more about some symbolic knowedge that probably will never affect us or our prosperity and comfort.

Well, on a personal level, I could probably earn more if I´d go into economy. I´ve decided to become a researcher because I´m interested in that symbolic knowledge and also because researching is something I like. I´d rather earn less and not hate my job. But that´s of course a personal decision.