Not many non-scientists understand very much about the practice and uses of science, of course — that goes for the liberal camp as well. Though they tend to be more pro-science, their comprehension of scientific processes and knowledge vs. wisdom is about that of a toddler contemplating an internal combustion engine.

So when I see comments like this, I am not surprised. It’s the most common view.

Person is still a blazing blockhead, of course.

Let’s go back a ways. I’m old enough to remember (as a friend of mine also does) when if you were talking about researching and using renewable energy such as wind and solar, nearly everyone was battling to be first in line to call you foolish, stupid, delusional and a megaton-level moron.

Now of course solar and wind are literally getting cheaper by the day, and in many places are handily beating fossil fuels — all before any of the horrendous externalities of those fuels are even calculated in.

My point is that it’s really hard to tell what is useful. To the people who would queue up in the late 1990s and early 2000s to tell me what a doofus I was to proclaim the imperative to conduct alternative energy research, solar and wind were about as practical a topic of study as badger bovine burial practices.

Needless to say, they were utterly, dangerously wrong. (And I must note that it was not just the oil industry and their shills; such discussion was taboo on one of the leading peak oil websites of the time, too, and this was a majority view everywhere.)

Will studying how and why badgers bury calves in some circumstances save the world? Probably not. It’s very hard to predict, though, what will make any difference in the world at all — which is why all avenues must be explored. I am sure at the time it was said that Edward Jenner was wasting his days studying why milkmaids did not contract smallpox. Some dude messing around with cows and caring about women’s work. I mean, ugh, right? But look where that led.

The utter dripping disdain I distinctly recall from my advocacy of “impractical, idiotic” alternative energy during the 2000s made me more likely to support science in all its forms, even that which seems superfluous or trivial.

You can’t walk the path if don’t know the path is even there.