Richard Dawkins and Josh Szeps were discussing why science and space exploration are so often justified by their spin-offs. Dawkins says spin-offs are a tiny part of the real case, which is wonder and understanding.
…or justifying science because aspirin was discovered from the bark of trees, that kind of thing. The majesty of the size of the universe, well, the Milky Way galaxy to start, and of geological time and of plate tectonics and things like that. I think science teachers need to do more of that.
Yeah, and I wish we wouldn't play that game of always justifying scientific research on the basis of the way it can cash out pragmatically, you know, the Teflon argument. Well, we should, you know, we should go to Mars because it, who knows what untold consumer goods will come out of.
It's a tiny part of the justification. I liken it to justifying music because it's good exercise for the violinist's right arm.
Right, exactly. Yes. Where are you on the space race and colonizing Mars and things like that? Well, I'm
sympathetic to the sort of negative feeling that the enormous extra expense of sending humans is probably not worth it. And sending instruments is a better way to explore the solar system, which is all you can explore at the moment by visiting it. And because the extra expense of sending a human is…
provides an opportunity for normies to sit in front of their TV and go, wow, that's. So I'm a bit ambivalent.