The folks often disagree however.
I've worked in medical (cancer) genetics and gravitation, although never in the big science projects associated with the former. "Folks" probably think the former is more important. From the inside, I see a huge amount of money wasted on unfeasible projects because of equally huge egos, who can't stomach to be told that laws of mathematics and logic mean they can't do waht they are spending money to try to do. The net gain from the billions spent on various genome sequencing projects has been important, but actually very modest in extent. Mostly, we've learnt that what people had insisted was true was not (tumours are not homogeneous clones, they don't march inexorably on but can be stopped by the immune system, and that our healthy tissue is itself a mosaic of diffent genotypes, many of which were supposed to be very unhealthy). And please don't say "epigenetics" at this point, it's just another round of massive hype and self-delusion... with some interesting facts buried underneath.
Worth remembering that this internet thingy was a by-product of CERN, and that the whole thing is much cheaper than a football world-cup (even without using border-line slave labour and a huge worker mortality rate). certainly cheaper than a moderate size proxy way in the middle-east.
But finally, science is like art. Some of it is maybe more expensive than is reasonable... but it's worth doing, imho.
Trust me, Graham I shall never mention epigenetics! I have no idea where they live nor even who they are.
Gravitation has always interested me. As with suction, I realise that it simply doesn't exist: suction is nothing but the other side of pressure, and gravity but the second part of cause and effect: if you jump six feet up in the air, as a measure of vertical distance travelled, you can only complete the action by virtue of its opposite - the return journey downwards, also of six feet. Nothing to do with 'gravity' at all, simply a product of equal and opposite directions. Do you see?
As to the cost of a world-cup - I can't pretend to know a lot about it; all I can offer is that it seems a pretty corrupt thing with which to mess; even now, at this late (or perhaps only early?) stage of multiple exposures, transparency is being denied in fresh elections: how brass-necked is that?
Regarding the art/science equilibrium: that some art is more expensive than another piece is without question; however, that
all of it is worth the doing is, nonetheless, questionable. I need do no more than look within my own soul: some of its outpourings I like, but many I strangle at birth. Nope, I don't believe all 'art' is valid, not even that all 'art' is actually art. Why would science be any different? I imagine it holds just as much corruption, self-serving effort and power structure-building as anything else. At least
Mars did the right thing.
The dificulties of attaining definitive thought...
Rob
