Science for fun or profit

The journal Nature has a weekly column that addresses job prospects of scientists. As a grad student anxiously looking forward to a real job, I check in on it weekly. One of the regular features is the brief musing of some young scientist on their day to day struggles and realizations.

This week's column includes the writings of a post doctoral plant geneticist. She reflects on the ambivalence of a friend who works in industry and the possibility of making the transition herself. The final line invokes a common sentiment: "For me, the hardest adjustment is the notion that science is profit, and that this has great influence on one's research."

I am continually frustrated by this attitude and its implication that "real" scientists are motivated purely by an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Although it's possible that this woman merely wishes to do the most practical good she can for humanity without the constraints of a business model, most academics who express this sentiment show an equal disdain for both profitable and altruistic technological applications. It is implied that any effort to use your knowledge cheapens its acquisition.

If science really was simply the quest for knowledge, then it would be placed by any rational society in the same box as philosophy and the arts; luxuries worthy of funding when extra resources are available. I'd like to see how much a molecular biologist (who can easily spend thousands of dollars a day) could accomplish on a poet's stipend. In the end, all of biology pretty much comes down to medicine and agriculture. The NIH, NSF, USDA and all other science funding agencies wouldn't exist if they didn't represent such a valuable investment to the citizens of United States who pay for them.

Expecting all fellow scientists to be motivated solely by curiosity is not only arrogant and unrealistic, but threatens the scientific infrastructure of the United States. We will maintain our first-tier research position only as long as we continue to translate our science into the practical technology that our citizens expect us to produce. We should celebrate (and advertise to the public!) when scientists are able to make a return on society's investment in them. The love of learning is useful trait for a scientist to have, but it shouldn't be a goal. If your research, at some point down the line, doesn't contribute to a product that someone's willing to spend their paycheck on, then your research wasn't worth doing.