Comment by ur-whale

>commercial exploitation

Why would you bring that into the conversation?

Did I mention anything about money?

> Very limiting to couple the pursuit of knowledge to application

Didn't say that either.

I said "useful", and what I meant was "can the knowledge gained be used by us to implement change now or at some point in the future".

As pointed out by another poster, the interesting talking point is that it is hard to guess beforehand whether knowledge gained will ever be useful.

I nevertheless believe in the principle that research should be directed by the hope of discovering something useful, not by the mere pleasure of finding some sort of satisfying "explanation" to the way things work.

But hey, if mine does satisfy you, please let us know what criteria you would use to discover when you've squarely left the area of worthy research to enter that of intellectual onanism.