by Marcelo Gleiser

Quite often, either through emails or in public lectures, I am criticized, along with thousands of other colleagues, for dedicating my time to basic science and not to more immediate problems faced by society. Why should I research the origin of the universe or of life, or the physics of black holes, when so many are suffering from hunger, disease and abject poverty? Instead, the well-intentioned critics argue, scientists should be working collectively to improve people’s quality of life and to decrease human suffering, not wondering about how stars shine or what the basic building blocks of matter are.

They go on: “Why should scientists 'waste their time' with questions that are so removed from everyday life when they could be working on a cure for malaria or trying to come up with cost-effective alternative energy fuels? Don’t they have the ethical obligation to use their talents to help others? And they use public funds for this?”

 

Given the importance of this question, I’d like to present a brief sketch for what could be called a “basic science apology.”

First, it’s important to try to define what “basic science” is — not an easy task. Distinguishing basic from applied science, basic science is not related to immediate applications such as the development of new technologies or new medications.

The problem with this distinction, which partly reflects the confusion behind the criticism toward basic science research, is that it’s very hard to predict what questions that now may appear quite esoteric will actually find practical applications in the future.

Think, for example, of the development of quantum mechanics, the physics that studies the behavior of atoms and molecules. Early in the 20th century, when scientists such as Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Schrödinger and Heisenberg were trying to understand the behavior of the atom, they couldn’t have imagined that their theories would revolutionize the way we think about reality and, as a bonus, the way we live.

Transistors, semiconductors, lasers, the whole digital technology of modern life emerged as a consequence of their musings. And it was from atomic and nuclear physics that new forms of radiation were discovered, such as the X rays that changed the face of medicine and genetics, and the nuclear weapons that changed history.

Wherever there is light, there is shadow, as said the Buddha.

To think of the inapplicability of basic science in the short term creates the false notion that most theoretical speculations will never turn out to be of practical value, which is clearly not the case.

It’s also important to keep in mind that the vast majority of scientists work in applied fields. Relatively few physicists, chemists and biologists are strictly theoretical, in the sense of working on fundamental questions not directly related to ongoing experiments. Furthermore, it’s unfair to state that scientists that work on theoretical questions don’t care about the important social and political issues of our time.

Should we make the same criticism of taxi drivers, bankers and lawyers? Sure, there are those who lock themselves in their offices and forget about the world. (Isaac Newton, actually, was like that for most of his life.) But then you have scientists like Linus Pauling or Andrei Sakharov and so many others who dedicated so much of their lives to social and political activism. As usual, to generalize is to lose sight of the huge variety of thinkers that make up any professional class.

I offer one last argument: Humanity needs a handful of individuals who are free to dream up new realities, artistic or scientific. A painting doesn’t help to fight hunger directly (unless it’s used in fund-raising…). But it helps elevate us above the triviality of everyday life, inspiring and enriching our experiences. A new theory of how galaxies are formed or of how elementary particles interact does the same. There are few theoretical astrophysicists and painters in this world. I hope there will always be room for them to keep on working.