RE: Whats the point of modern science?
December 28, 2013 at 8:58 pm
(This post was last modified: December 28, 2013 at 9:04 pm by pineapplebunnybounce.)
Do you honestly think that your failure to come up with ideas of how to utilize the latest findings in research is sufficient enough reason to declare that there is no point to entire fields of scientific study?
Do you even understand what is being discovered and the implications of those discovery?
And when you say recent, there will be new discoveries being churned out every single day, reasonable people don't expect applications to pop into existence as these findings are revealed. So at any point in time, there will be a lot of research for which no one has tried to incorporate into some practical application. That is a sign of progress not stagnation.
The MRI machine couldn't have come into being without the periodic table, atomic theories, magnetism, electricity, medical science, imaging technology, computing technology, etc. etc. The amount of scientific research that went into the building of that one machine spans centuries. And let's not forget for every successful discovery there probably was about 40 failed experiments. All of that culminates into a diagnostic machine that serves to extend our lives. The dude who was painstakingly coming up with atomic theories and testing them did not foresee that. But he contributed to it. That's how science works, it doesn't rely on prophecies, it relies on honest work. That's what Newton meant when he said he was "standing on the shoulders of giants". Even scientific discovery is dependent upon previous discoveries, we learn from others' mistakes, even the mistakes are helpful in this huge endeavour to discover more about the world. I'm sorry but I don't know how else to say this, but throwing away knowledge or discounting it and discounting the hard work that came with it just because it doesn't benefit you RIGHT NOW, is just extremely foolish.
Do you even understand what is being discovered and the implications of those discovery?
And when you say recent, there will be new discoveries being churned out every single day, reasonable people don't expect applications to pop into existence as these findings are revealed. So at any point in time, there will be a lot of research for which no one has tried to incorporate into some practical application. That is a sign of progress not stagnation.
The MRI machine couldn't have come into being without the periodic table, atomic theories, magnetism, electricity, medical science, imaging technology, computing technology, etc. etc. The amount of scientific research that went into the building of that one machine spans centuries. And let's not forget for every successful discovery there probably was about 40 failed experiments. All of that culminates into a diagnostic machine that serves to extend our lives. The dude who was painstakingly coming up with atomic theories and testing them did not foresee that. But he contributed to it. That's how science works, it doesn't rely on prophecies, it relies on honest work. That's what Newton meant when he said he was "standing on the shoulders of giants". Even scientific discovery is dependent upon previous discoveries, we learn from others' mistakes, even the mistakes are helpful in this huge endeavour to discover more about the world. I'm sorry but I don't know how else to say this, but throwing away knowledge or discounting it and discounting the hard work that came with it just because it doesn't benefit you RIGHT NOW, is just extremely foolish.
