Science

Michael Faraday, was once asked by the then prime minister, Sir Robert Peel, “what was the use of science?”. “Sir”, Faraday replied, “what is the use of a baby?”

what he meant by that, must be that a baby has such potential. It may not be able to do very much now, but it will be able to do a lot.

But it’s also possible that what Faraday meant was that there’s no point in bringing a baby into the world, if all it’s going to do was work to go on living, to go on living, and work to go on living, again. If that’s all point of life, then what are we here for?

-from the Lecture ‘Growing Up in the Universe’ by Oxford professor Richard Dawkins.

What it reminds me is about, how we Indians treat science. Even the most celebrated research organization in India is directed to ensure the use of best technology for the benefit of common man. And we  do very little to let the baby grow and do wonders.

It is true that for a developing country, this rationale is very practical. But in the process of doing that, we are almost forgetting the whole pointlessness in bringing the ‘baby’ into the world to do only the work to go on living .