The reason that we can communicate via the internet, have prolonged lives due to better healthcare, have all manner of entertainment delivered to our doors and be able to understand a great deal about both the universe and the sub atomic world, is because we benefit from the thinkers of yesterday. The blogger The Flaxen Saxon has put up a brilliant short piece about how much of today’s science is based on the work done by those working in the 17th century.
Flaxen Saxon is in my view correct. We move through a world that although it is radically different from that of the 17th century, the science on which our societies are based owe much to the sort of scientists and thinkers named by Flaxen Saxon.
This is an article well worth reading if you want to get some understanding of just how revolutionary and influential the scientists of the 17th century were and still are.
http://flaxensaxon.blogspot.com/2021/01/the-triumph-of-science-in-17th-century.html
One ‘science’ receives far too much status and Gov’t funding
In my view it’s an interesting hobby and contributes little useful knowledge, but lots of guesswork & interpretation ‘information’
Which? Astronomy, about as useful as Astrology
On that I am afraid I disagree. Although Astronomy may seem useless it provides us with knowledge of how the universe works and how materials behave in the often strange and extreme environments of space. Basic science may not have immediate public good but when applied at a later date often does.
I wrote too quickly. On astronomy I believe near earth and within our solar system is useful. Although I don’t see any benefit in exploring Mars etc. Beyond it’s wasteful and an interesting hobby not a science like Biol, Chem and Physics
I can see where you are coming from and agree that near earth study is probably more immediately useful but study of stuff further out may become useful at some point in the future, it’s just that at the moment we don’t have an application for what the astronomer’s know or have studied.