Thank heaven for the scientists

SouthernN'Proud said:
I'm a taxpayer. This is a waste of money. I don't like my money wasted.
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and what if your life is one day saved by something that would not have existed if not for this research! you can never be sure with science! i mean, look at penicillin! it's mold, dammit! people weren't like, "mr. fleming, stop fucking around with mold, you're careless and oafish!", and even if they were, the joke would be on them, because now people don't die quite so much of the stuff they used to die from!
ok, so that's kind of different, but... i mean, scientific discoveries stem from other scientific (and non-scientific) discoveries. haven't you ever watched Connections?

no, seriously, read the page i just linked. it says a lot of what i'm trying to. like when it says "For example, the program traces the invention of plastics from the development of the fluyt, a type of Dutch cargo ship."

i mean, cargo ships are probably less disputably useful, but... just... you never know!
 
but the point is, you dont know, you can't tell the future, and stranger things have happened! so this is why they do this stuff!
 
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this point mr. southerner dood; Ash said it best - science matters. We don't know how valuable this application may turn out; it's seriously pre-emptive to just write it off though.
 
ash r said:
and what if your life is one day saved by something that would not have existed if not for this research! you can never be sure with science! i mean, look at penicillin! it's mold, dammit! people weren't like, "mr. fleming, stop fucking around with mold, you're careless and oafish!", and even if they were, the joke would be on them, because now people don't die quite so much of the stuff they used to die from!
ok, so that's kind of different, but... i mean, scientific discoveries stem from other scientific (and non-scientific) discoveries. haven't you ever watched Connections?

no, seriously, read the page i just linked. it says a lot of what i'm trying to. like when it says "For example, the program traces the invention of plastics from the development of the fluyt, a type of Dutch cargo ship."

i mean, cargo ships are probably less disputably useful, but... just... you never know!
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While you can make a plea that all scientific discovery is useful, you know that just isn't true. Most of what happened in "Connections" happened by accident. The scientist who discovered this was actually looking for that. Serendipity. You may now go back to your regularly scheduled arguments. :D
 
my point is, as i have said, some of it is by accident, some of it is on purpose, you can never be sure.

i don't mean to say it's useful, i mean to say it is important!
 
ash r said:
my point is, as i have said, some of it is by accident, some of it is on purpose, you can never be sure.

i don't mean to say it's useful, i mean to say it is important!
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Anything that isn't useful isn't important. :shrug:
 
I checked the original article and the guy quoted as the head of the research is from the University of California at San Diego. That means it's my tax dollars as a state university... for some reason, I'm having a hard time really caring either way. Maybe I'm just jaded by the state being given to the illegal immigrants or something... sort of like if something real bad is going on over here, it makes other things look pretty darn good by comparison.
 
For free, I'll tell you how to fix phone cord tangles.

Lift the receiver.
Grab cord about 1/3-1/2 way down.
Allow the handset to spin until it stops.
Replace receiver.
Cord is untangled.

Non-Private Universities use tax dollars. The difference between a college research project & a private sector R&D lab is twice the waste & one quarter the quality comes from public facilities. Considering somethiong like 60% of R&D dollars are wasted, that leaves a lot of tax dollars being burned in school.
 
I have a thought. Perhaps the string entanglement theory can be used to more perfectly pack parachutes for the military, or make compact emergency parachutes for private planes to try and save the whole craft. It can also be used into the parachutes of top fuel dragsters. Lord knows I see those getting tangles all the time.
 
Gato_Solo said:
Anything that isn't useful isn't important. :shrug:
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Like the appendix, which up until recently, was pretty much "useless." People would be fine before, then get sick, appendix was removed, and they went back to fine. Must not be important or useful, right? ;)

Perhaps the better phrase would be: everything from science can be useful....if not now, then later.

[theoretical] I suppose studying adhesiveness of organic waste in landfills or cowpies would be a waste too. Perhaps the findings (despite the study being a failure) may end up fixing the problem of using electrical tape in extreme conditions where the tape breaks down on the jacket of the cable leaving a sticky residue on your beloved cables.

Bah, no, useless waste of time. ;) [/theoretical]
 
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Some scientists think they have figured out the real job of the troublesome and seemingly useless appendix: It produces and protects good germs for your gut.

That's the theory from surgeons and immunologists at Duke University Medical School, published online in a scientific journal this week.

For generations the appendix has been dismissed as superfluous. Doctors figured it had no function. Surgeons removed them routinely. People live fine without them.

And when infected the appendix can turn deadly. It gets inflamed quickly and some people die if it isn't removed in time. Two years ago, 321,000 Americans were hospitalized with appendicitis, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most are good and help digest food.

But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case.

The appendix "acts as a good safe house for bacteria," said Duke surgery professor Bill Parker, a study co-author. Its location _ just below the normal one-way flow of food and germs in the large intestine in a sort of gut cul-de-sac -- helps support the theory, he said.

Rest here
 
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