One big mistake people do is conflate society as a whole with all its members. Society, as a whole, probably doesn't care about a new cockroach species. But th

One big mistake people do is conflate society as a whole with all its members. Society, as a whole, probably doesn't care about a new cockroach species. But there is someone who does, just on Earth. Similarly, among any civ that has the basic biological impulses required to become an interstellar civ, there are going to be people who want to branch out on their own, who want to study something on their own, who want to be the first to contact something new. It's all those millions of edge-case members that will do the amazing stuff.