However, as the other poster pointed out: research requires funding, and sources of funding are far lower that people who want funding. Furthermore, if you're doing research for its own sake, where there's no chance of a payout, you're going to have it survive on a small amount of money. This is fine when you're 22, but what about when you're 35 and have a wife and kids you need to take care of? If you don't have money in the bank, some bad luck (like a kids broken leg) could wreck you. Which means its in your best interest to go where the money is.

Now suppose we lived in an idyllic society where if you were a scientist, you would never have to worry about health an vacation and groceries and car repairs and house repairs and everything else that comes up. Well, in that case, you've got a bunch of researchers, many of whom will never produce anything of value, and they're being funded by the state, or more so the rest of the people. And because by definition research is hard to judge the value of, people can't decide if your research is legitimate or something just to take state funding. Which brings you to where we are now: a limited pool of public funding, to which people apply for grants, or corporate funding, which usually expects some payout. While it would be nice a larger pool of public funds for research, there is in no way we could have an infinte supply for knowledge at all costs. After all, the world runs on money, and that needs to cone from somewhere.

The best way to do whatever research you want is to make your money first, and then do what you want with it.

Even though we beat our chests about STEM education, basic sciences are woefully underfunded in relation to the number of students who graduate every year with BS, MS, and PhD degrees in life sciences.

Carry on; both of you are fantastic humans. :)

I argue that consumerist systems of ideas are essentially against human nature, fundamentally flawed. Because they focus locally, history-wise; "me, now, need that. yes, good. more. thank you."

In the mean time, humans are a uniquely interdependent species, in that they are interdependent not just in space, but also in time – through the techno-ideological legacies that are being passed on to next generations (and research is at the heart of all that). So, any endeavour that does not start as a concern for the future, and for the next generations, is against our very human nature... You know, somebody put it well: "for the most part, what we are surrounded by is not the dead work of the living, it is the living work of the dead." :)

Also, I believe that with the advent of computers, it has never been a better time in human history to do science (then, again, I also believe the statement could have been made at any point in human history. See above.) The computational power, the software, and Google – the great minds of our past would have surely looked at those and believe they are the holy grail of humanity. And the most amazing part is, that they empower anybody to conduct research.

In sciences, I find meaning and sanity. And people behave like gentlemen. Yes, that is pleasurable and deeply satisfying; but it is also preferable to the materialistic hysterias, which created so many socio-economic problems – proof of their lack of human ecology.

I hope I made a strong argument :)

I saw somebody say this in a Youtube video: "Stay human. Stay curious. And let the entire world know that you are."

Sure, you could point to the influence of the media and how it shapes our behavior. But then again, the media is a social construct, something we humans have created and directed at ourselves. Thus, once again, the construction of mass media is also a part of human nature. All this would prove is that human nature is highly malleable.

How can you even begin to argue that something is "against our very human nature?" The fact that humans do that behavior is evidence it is in our human nature. You see, making such a claim relies on some inherently non-human standard of determining human nature and morality (since it seems your argument has to do with morality).

I think you made an exceedingly weak argument, by relying on such hand-wavy and self-defined notions as "human nature."

Well, if we've always been doing X, and it seems we cannot do without it (well, try to argue against that); and then at some point we started doing Y (while still doing X); and Y is conflicting with/retarding X; then Y must be detrimental to our human nature.

On a different line of thought... In this case, X (i.e the spatio-temporal interdependence of our species) seems to pretty much enable Y anyway, so could X further be said to be more fundamental than Y? Well, Y also could be argued to enable X (hey, consumerism keeps us interacting with each other, etc.)... but it does a rather poor job overall. I don't think it's a great innovation, as much as some sociologists would probably wish to believe.

So... All in all, and to be more polite, we say it's preferable to postulate X, rather than Y, as fundamental to the so-called human nature, in order to make possible desirable results – such as a thirst for learning, curiosity, a concern for others, etc.

Or that other people had fucked up society so much (for their own benefit, unrelated to X and Y), so that people are forced to do Y.

Like, for example, being a child prostitute.

Nothing in human nature (outliers excluded) makes a child want to prostitute itself. But they do it, all over the world, either because they are threatened with violence, or because they have to eat and it's something they can do to achieve that.

I gave an extreme example -- normal prostitution is equally off. As are tons of other things (working 16 hour shifts at some shitty factory in China for example, or eating fast food crap day in and day out), but those are not as controversial and people accept them more.