>How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it? I don't think that's possible. The history of science is full of scie

>How do you prove to the politicians that a particular scientific investment is worth it? I don't think that's possible. The history of science is full of science that shouldn't have worked but did - think of Barry Marshall drinking Helicobacter pylori, which no-one thought to be a causative agent, or think of Norman Borlaug, who came up with shuttle breeding (grow a plant twice a year by driving seeds around, at a time when people thought that you have to let the seeds rest for a while) - but the history of science is also full of things that should have worked but didn't, we just don't hear about those (classic survivor bias). In some cases, you can tell whether an experiment is going to work and how it's important, especially if it's incremental work - in some cases, you simply cannot predict. Just think of how delighted G. H. Hardy was that his mathematics was kind of useless to the general public, and how useful his work is nowadays (most importantly the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium I guess?), he could not have predicted how that works out! What would he have written into his application for funding?