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Asked by Missy to Angela, Claire, Ian, Robert, Sarah on 10 Nov 2014. This question was also asked by smiley face.
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Ian Cade answered on 10 Nov 2014:
To be honest, I do not undertake research in Chemistry for the benefit of anyone or any group in particular or Human society as a whole, I do it because I like exploring the objectively real world around me.
It so happens I’m in the fortunate position of living in a society that (quite rightly) recognises that research even (or probably especially) without a particular goal is a worthwhile endeavour.
The two commonly used examples of how simple scientific curiosity lead to marketable products are: Lasers and Transistors. Both of which were created by scientists simply motivated by wanting to see what happened. I can’t imaging any of the researchers involved could have cared less for the eventual applications in CDs/DVDs/optic fibre communication and computers, important as they have turned out to be.
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Angela Stokes answered on 10 Nov 2014:
Hi Missy
I don’t think my work is more valuable than research in any other scientific discipline. All research is important and it impacts our lives in different ways. I hope that pharmaceutical development is useful to humans and I believe it is – many more people are living longer because of developments in medicine, but we need to remember that other aspects of scientific research have also played a part in this. For example, researchers have been working on developing lightweight materials to make artificial limbs, and engineers have developed circuits which can be implanted and used by amputees to move those limbs by moving muscles and the pharmaceutical chemists have been developing the drugs to prevent rejection of these cables…..everything is interlinked and it is all very important.
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