Governments should not fund any scientific research whose consequences are unclear.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the recommendation and explain your reasoning for the position you take. In developing

While it may seem that many areas of scientific research do not have clear consequences, and thus should not be funded, a more careful analysis reveals that throughout the development of humankind, results from pure science research have greatly helped advance society. There are many striking examples of this, and particular, two are found in physics. The development of electromagnetism, by Faraday, Ampere, Maxwell, and others, resulted in uncountable applications that completely transformed modern life. Furthermore, the development of quantum physics in the early 20th century, by Einstein, Bohr, Dirac, Schroedinger, and others, have started to offer some useful applications as well.

The theory of electromagnetism seeks to explain electric and magnetic phenomena. That is, forces felt between charges and currents, which are charges in motion. When this was being developed by scientists in the 19th century, they were exploring these ideas merely out of their desire to understand the workings of the natural world. There was no clear, applicable, “end goal” for their research. They were not trying to invent a computer, a smartphone, or anything of the like. However, with this understanding of the natural world (obtained from what some might call “directionless” research), we have been able to manipulate natural processes and utilize them for our own purposes. Modern computers, which are instrumental in everyday life, as well as in scientific applications, and smartphones, for example, are direct results of the research of the aforementioned scientists. Furthermore, this work has had important ramifications in medical fields—MRIs and other modern screening technologies have saved countless lives by detecting cancer and other diseases very early, leading to much more successful treatment.

Another example of a physical theory with no apparent consequences having important ramifications can be found in quantum theory. This was developed in the early 20th century to explain physics at very small scales—on the scale of an atom or molecule or smaller. The scientists who first explored these phenomena were concerned only with understanding the natural world, and were not conducting their research to invent a “useful” application. However, the understanding of these ideas once again has allowed us to manipulate nature to utilize these phenomena in powerful ways. For example, the laser is an application of quantum physics. It has applications in, for example, the medical field. Surgeons can now make incisions with lasers, rather than with scalpels. This reduces the risk of infection due to the fact that a possibly unclean object is not in contact with the bloodstream. Another potential application is the quantum computer. In an ordinary, “classical” computer, information in a bit is stored as a 0 or a 1. However, in quantum mechanics, a system can be in a superposition of two states—it can be anywhere “in between” the two states. This allows for much faster computing, which will no doubt have important ramifications in many areas where scientific computing is of interest.

Scientific research, then, can take many unexpected returns, and there are countless examples of such research leading to useful, life-saving applications. Thus, it is important to fund pure scientific work. However, while research can be useful without having any apparent immediate applications, the researcher must have some sense of direction—an outline of a project—to be funded by the government. The sense of direction need not be very precise, since research in general, and scientific research specifically, can take many different turns, it is important for researchers to have general ideas about the direction of their work.