Science is the study of how the natural world works. Technology is the application of science to solve problems and to do useful things. However, the everyday world makes no crisp distinction between science and science-based technology, seeing science as both the investigation of the natural world and the development of technology, with the latter aspect being considered far more important. Such an undifferentiated understanding does a disservice both to basic and to applied science.
Everything that happens in the physical world must comply with the scientific principles that govern the world. Therefore, the more we know about these physical principles, the more useful technology we can create, and the more practical problems we can solve. Applied science is nourished by basic science. If this nourishment were to stop, applied science would become a shadow of its former strength. Basic science is driven by pure curiosity. Most modern technological advances that have proved to be economically important sprang from curiosity-driven research. For example, computing is based on abstract mathematical principles. In 1847, George Boole (1815-1864), the first professor of mathematics at University College Cork, built a bridge between mathematics and formal logic through a new form of algebra, known today as Boolean algebra. Boolean algebra now underlies all programming of digital computers, but Boole had no idea of this future use of his invention when he quietly developed it in Cork.
There are many other examples. For example, genetic engineering and modern biotechnology all flow from the curiosity-driven discovery of the structure of DNA in 1953 by Francis Crick and James Watson.
Much of the knowledge produced by curiosity-driven research finds practical application sooner or later. However, it is impossible to predict which piece of fundamental research will bear fruit in this manner, or when such fruit will ripen. Financial planners don't like this unpredictability, and neither do civil servants. So, the pressure builds to try to pick areas of research for funding that will quickly spin off technological applications. Unfortunately, the net effect of such large-scale targeted science funding is to restrict both the generation of new knowledge and the flow of technological spin-off.
The history of science shows many examples where narrowly targeting a practical problem to achieve a speedy solution hasn't paid off. For example, since the 1960s, the most intensive scientific efforts have been made to find a cure for cancer but overall, cancer remains almost as big a scourge today as it ever was. It is now clear that our basic understanding of the nature of cancer was insufficient to allow the scientific search for a cure a reasonable chance of success in the short term. Since most cancers are preventable, investment in prevention would have yielded much greater results than the search for a cure.
The basic knowledge produced by science does not come with instructions attached on how to apply it wisely. Like any other knowledge, scientific knowledge can be used wisely or unwisely.
The growth of basic scientific knowledge this century has allowed such a huge technological spin-off that the world now runs on science-based technology. Most of the controversies associated with "science" are related to this technology, e.g. nuclear power, genetically modified foods, cloning, etc.
The applications of science are largely decided by non-scientists - mainly politicians and big business. Technologies are now so diverse that one or other controversial issue is always on the public stage. It might, therefore, be assumed that science produces as many problems as benefits. But scientific knowledge in itself causes no problems. The perceived difficulties arise almost entirely from the applications of science.
We are now so preoccupied with justifying support for science on the basis of its utility in spinning off new technology that we are apt to forget that science is a basic human activity. Humans are inquisitive by nature. "Man by his nature feels the urge to know," is how Aristotle put it. This point was touchingly recorded during testimony given at a US Congressional Committee. In 1971, Fermilab began to commission a huge accelerator. Difficulties arose and it seemed the machine might never work. Dr Robert Wilson, the director of the project, was summoned before the Congressional Committee investigating expenditure on the project, and cross-examined by Senator John Pastore. Pastore was eager to uncover practical applications of particle physics. Wilson answered that physics was not merely a path to more technology but was also a fundamental human activity. "What, then, is the purpose of Fermilab?" asked Pastore. Wilson replied: "The purpose of Fermilab is to get answers to questions that men have asked for a very long time." Pastore pressed Wilson for a more practical answer: "Is there anything connected with the hopes of this accelerator that in anyway involves the security of this country?"
Wilson: "No sir - I do not believe so." Pastore: "Nothing at all?"
Wilson: "Nothing at all."
Pastore: "It has no value in that respect?"
Wilson: "It has only to do with the respect with which we regard one another, the dignity of men, our love of culture. It has to do with are we good painters, good sculptors, great poets? I mean all the things we really venerate and honour in our country and are patriotic about. It has nothing to do directly with defending our country, except to make it worth defending."
William Reville is a senior lecturer in biochemistry and director of microscopy at UCC