Dead ends is probably a bit excessive. I'm mainly referring to lines of research that don't appear to promise any real-world returns in the near future. For example, why are we searching the skies for Earthlike planets if we generally agree that it'd be impossible to get to any of them in our lifetime? Or why are we looking for remnants of a supposed 'Big Bang' when even its proponents agree that we are separated from it by billions of years? Why do we poke around looking for things that don't impact us?
It's not that they're not important. That's not what I'm saying. It's just that we have more imminent concerns right now. Like the fact that a sizable percentage of the people on this planet don't have access to clean water and regular medical care. I look at how much effort we're sinking into proving our own personal versions of the origin of the universe and life on Earth, in particular, and I look at how much effort we're sinking into those more imminent things, and I wonder about our priorities.
I've always had more of an engineer's perspective than a scientist's perspective, I think. I like to concentrate on application rather than theory when it comes to scientific research. But there's plenty of room for both.
