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Many scientists will take a serious look
at an area which appears to offer a rich
source of funding. Its called staying
employed. We scientists bullshit it all the
time. Its all about money. And, in a number
of cases, reputation and ego. And why you ask is
this method so successful?? Because 99.5% of
the population wouldn't know their ass from a
hole in the ground when it comes to having
even one iota of understanding of the subject
matter, whether it be biological, physical
or chemical research. And I don;t mean to leave
out the engineers. My lab gets so much money
simply be indicating that we do 'HIV research'.
And no, the two courses you took as an undergrad
DO NOT prepare you nor do they provide you
with a firm grounding in sciences regardless
of what the university admin said. And reading
the NYT or the Wash Post or Time mag at best
enriches your vacabulary on the subject matter.

I'll bet you believe that the magic bullets
for cancer, HIV and old age are stored in
a refrigerator at the NSF just waiting for the
appropriate time or for FDA approval, which ever
comes first. Progress in these areas has been
and will continue to be made incrementally,
until the one big breakthrough, the EUREKA.
You can be a significant player in your field
(or considered so)via either one of two
routes: you can be the EUREKA dude or you
can be an incrementalist accumulating as much
specialized info as possible. And not someone
else's info, your own.

next lesson: Lies, damn lies & statistics

This is not a personal attack, simply the way
that science works.

Mad (science type) Vlad

I'm not a scientist. I did work on the National Aerospace Plane project for 7 years, and saw real technology---if not science---at work. There is a VERY thin line, I found, between the "eureka" people you disparage and the true breakthroughs.

You only have to look at Einstein's biography to see that while he had in fact grounded himself in all the theory of the day, he nevertheless made three "eureka" breakthroughs in a matter of a few years.

I base everything on historical trends, and the trends are that dramtic breakthroughs of all types have accelerated---only 100 years ago we didn't even have airplanes, computers, lasers, or microwaves. Just based on that, history tells me that barring a cataclysm, the next 100 years will bring proportionately great breakthroughs, including even cheaper, more abundant energy and some advanced travel---anti-gran? I don't know, but definitely far beyond what most people contemplate now.