4 ms·
Those of you flummoxed by this probably at some point have questioned why study the immune systems of bacteria (led to the biggest breakthrough of late, crispr)
by theprop 9y ago
Those of you flummoxed by this probably at some point have questioned why study the immune systems of bacteria (led to the biggest breakthrough of late, crispr) or number theory (led to all cryptography) or build an app to make photos disappear or other things that only later become obviously "useful".
- williamscales 9y agoYou had me until the bit about disappearing photos - that's not an innovation, anybody who has wanted to has always been able to make photos disappear after sending. It's a bit of a false equivalence to mention a twist on sending someone a photo in the same sentence as you mention such great research efforts as number theory and bacterial immunology.
- wutbrodo 9y agoI entertained the thought of how strange the article is, and yet I don't think I've ever felt that way about any of the innovations you're describing: in fact I may I'm probably a little too slavish in my trust of the direction our collective research infrastructure. That isn't to say I disagree with you in general though. Given where and when I was born relative to the article's setting, it's a lot more understanding that my baseline would be faith in the long-term wisdom of scientific progress.