How much is basic research worth really?

Abstract

BRIEF PROPOSAL HOW MUCH IS BASIC RESEARCH WORTH REALLY? JOSÉ P. SEGUNDO, M.D.* Nations, faced with inevitable limitations of available manpower and funds, are forced to evaluate and then order scientific and technical research proposals according to certain priorities. A prime issue in this ordering is the immediacy and directness of applications: at one extreme, "practical" projects concerned with food production, disease management, and so on, and, at the other, "basic" projects with fewer usable connotations. This setting of priorities is not faced with clear alternatives, and, as with most important questions, no general rule can be applied rigidly in different nations and times. There are two extreme opinions, of which that overstressing practical research is more significant, first because it is more common, especially in times of crises, and second because those supporting it tend to carry more administrative weight. Indeed, the few who would subscribe to the idyllic and essentially unkind notion expressed by Dostoyevsky's character that "Shakespeare and Raphael are more precious than the emancipation of the serfs" would probably wield little power. The others, who believe that only work on practical matters can be allowed, or even that it is not time for research at all, other problems being far more pressing, are not so few and in not so innocuous positions. At present and in many nations the pendulum has swung, admittedly with some justification, toward more support for practical research and less for fundamental work. Comprehension of the basis on which value is attributed to research is an interesting general question. Its discussion, as that of any set of values, is difficult, provided as we are with a limited and not altogether consistent understanding that leads us to absolute certainty on few counts, if on any. These inevitable doubts usually do not carry us to complete passivity, however, and here, as elsewhere , we try to set the most reasonable course and to act accordingly. The value of practical work, on the one hand, is understood easily, and most would accept without question the truly vital importance of the needs that justify it, needs that relate directly to the preservation of the individual and of the species. The value of basic research, on the other hand, depends certainly on the fact that the knowledge it provides will sooner or later favor understanding of some pragmatic issue and, therefore, will increase our control over nature. The following para- * Department of Anatomy, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90024. Perspectives in Biology and Medicine · Winter 1973 | 329 graphs will argue that this mediate implication may not be its only claim to value. The argument arises largely on the recognition of certain common opinions. For example, is it not true that, regardless of whether one agrees with Dante Alighieri in his criticism of indifference to public wrongs, one appreciates highly the result of the time he spent not in political strife or public works improving the lot of his contemporaries but, rather, in private and writing? And is it not true also that regardless of whether one agrees with I. P. Pavlov's sympathetic view of the Soviet revolution as a gigantic experiment, one is glad that he devoted most of his time not to the inevitable commotion but, rather, to scientific experimentation? Do not many individuals feel that life would be drab and with little worth, hardly bearable even, and as if it happened in a cave, were it not for occasional glimpses into the beauties and the mysteries that surround us? The answer in most cases to these and similar queries would be affirmative. Such opinions are often held strongly and, moreover, are quite generalized. Strong and widespread support for certain opinions is not necessarily, of course, conclusive proof of their correctness. On the other hand, powerful and generalized opinions can hardly be ignored or attributed to trivial reasons. One can well wonder, therefore, whether they, too, respond to deep-rooted drives whose biological importance should be recognized. It is, in fact, as if humans were moved not only by the drives to proper nourishment, good health, and so forth—drives which, of course, are vital in a direct and elementary way—but, in...