Why is valuable time and resources spent on studying useless stuff?

Because it isn't useless.

we sell 38-different kinds of blue cheese, there is some to every taste.

customer satisfaction and quality of life is our main concern; its PRIMO..

It's fun

It's never been studied before, they can publish in scientific journals

Maybe there IS a modern link to it that would benefit society (or make money)

Etc.

*laughs* I'll play.

o Because money changes hands. You'll find that to be sufficient motivation for a lot of things. Become a tenured professor. Write grant proposals. Get grants. Get sponsors. You can investigate pretty much anything you're interested in as long as you can continue to bring in money.

o Because you're a grad student. You have to advance science in some way to get your doctorate, and all the low-hanging fruit have already been picked. Publish or perish.

==

I was part of a "bring in money" effort. A pharmaceutical company wanted to test which of two similar drugs worked. They already knew the answer, but wanted some independent confirming testing done. Money changed hands. Hooray.

Humans have no way of knowing what use we can make of something when we do not even know what it may be. Take X ray for example. No one said to themselves, "I am going to discover x-ray because I know that it will be useful in the future when we can use it to look at people's bones, and look inside luggages at airports to see if something illegal is being smuggled." How can we know what x rays may be used for, if we do not know if it even exists, and what it is?

X ray has many uses, and so do radio waves. Cell phones, TV, GPS and smart phones would not be possible without radio waves. Yet scientists who studied and discovered both had no idea what they would discover, or what use their discovery may have in the distant future; Therefore if we will not fund scientific research simply because we do not know what use our discovery may be put to, scientific progress will grind to a halt. We may not go back to the stone age, but we are unlikely to advance further scientifically or technologically beyond what we have now. What we do not know may or may not hurt us, but what we do not know can never be used to help us by inventing new uses for new discoveries. Indeed there are a lot about nature we do not know, and if we severely limit scientific research to what may only be immediately useful, then the likelihood that we will learn anything new is very small.

Take your example about cheese. Do you know why you hate cheese and why you find it disgusting but others do not? I bet you have no idea why you find cheese "disgusting." Some people love cheese. If we do not do any research, we simply won't find out why different people feel differently about cheese. Is it due to genetics, or is it due to past experience with cheese? If it is genetics, then which genes are responsible? .If we do research and discover the reason why, we may actually come up with some new uses for new knowledge. I cannot tell you what new uses we may find, because we simply do not know what may or may not be discovered. It is simply ridiculous for some conservative politicians to mock scientific research, claiming that it is a waste of money. They simply do not understand that we need basic scientific research and to understand nature before we can apply our knowledge to benefit human kind. Only if we know what is in nature do we know how to make use of them. Since we cannot feel, see, hear, or touch radio waves and x rays, we could not have known that they exist without scientific research, and the scientific research that discovered both of those things could have been called useless research by boneheaded politicians.

The problem is you are almost certainly only getting your science through the tabloid press. They are not interested in the facts but in creating stupid headlines and probably getting people annoyed about things they need not be annoyed about.

Research is carried on for all kinds of reasons and if you think that people simply waste their time thinking up pointless ideas you have never tried to get research funding.

Sometimes, it is mind-boggling... and some research is truly worthless (look up "Golden Goose" awards...). The most stupid research study I know is one in which "researchers determined that abused children are more likely to be depressed"... DUH!

However, there is much research that may seem worthless on the surface, but paves the way for important advances in the field later on. Also, some research applies -- but you just don't see it. Consider the following examples:

You say you dislike cheese -- but WHY does it taste disgusting to you, and not to someone else? Would you take a medication that tasted like cheese? Research has shown that many tastes have a genetic component. If the reason for distaste can be determined, it could have important applications in counteracting the taste of foods or medicines that would be beneficial.

YOU may not care why someone prefers blondes over brunettes, but people who sell hair coloring care a lot. They would use this information in their marketing, and successful businesses employ more people.

Certain beneficial inventions have occurred while people were actually researching, or observing, something ELSE... penicillin, post-it notes, rubber, velcro, etc.

First ... Cheese is AWESOME.

Second, knowing something like why some people don't like cheese can provide greater insights into things like how human taste developed the way it did, which can lead to insights into all manner of neurological questions.

The same is true of why some people people prefer blondes over brunettes or vice-versa. That could provide all sorts of insights into how natural selection shapes sexual preferences over time.

Yes