The 20th century has been a revolutionary period in the history of mankind. An invention is essentially just a good idea that serves a purpose. The only goal an invention has to accomplish is solving some kind of problem. Whether it’s making it easier for wheelchair-bound individuals to get around, or the scientific discovery of a new medical vaccine, every invention fits into its own significant role in society. The emergence of modern science is an event: in the way it appeals to facts, or more precisely to experiments and every new discovery, every new scientific experiment, is in similar ways a new event.

From yahoo.com:

That great scientific and philosophical mind, Sir Francis Bacon, way back in the seventeenth century, opined that all scientific knowledge must be put to use for the greater good of humankind. While we have to acknowledge that he was probably a corrupt old bean, and dressed funny, it cannot be disputed that in making this statement, he was spot on. What is the use of all this fancy-schmancy science if, in the end, it does not benefit us all?

Yet our governments and scientists continue to pour their efforts into obscure, esoteric and mostly useless disciplines that have no discernible positive impact on the common man’s life. For instance, we recently celebrated, like so many delirious parakeets, the discovery of water on the moon. The moon? Seriously? This is like a starving man in Gobichettipalayam, Tamil Nadu celebrating wildly on learning that there is some leftover pizza in somebody’s house in Italy. Worse – said starving man could theoretically get to Italy, but no way in hell is he ever making it to the moon.

It costs us so much to send out a space probe to the moon (or Mars. or the planet Stroggos.) that it wouldn’t matter a duck if it were to discover whisky. This is a colossal waste of money, and a criminal distraction of the world’s finest minds, who should be working on more useful and productive stuff. It’s like a farmer purchasing a pair of fine, strong oxen, and then entering them in beauty contests instead of using them to plough the field. The oxen might even win (look at the standard of beauty contests today), but it doesn’t really help the farm.

Since I’ve always got mankind’s best interests at heart, let me make a few suggestions regarding where our scientific research budgets should be focused.

A solution to the mosquito problem: While our scientists are busy futzing about in the vast reaches of outer space, these little yet deadly creatures are busy wreaking havoc right here on earth. They kill huge numbers of people every year, and, even worse, they give you a nasty itch. Surely, if more funds were devoted to solving this problem, we could easily annihilate them? I have an idea – why not use genetic engineering to create a super-breed of killer cannibal mosquitoes that feed only on other mosquitoes? That way, they’d eat all the normal mosquitoes, and then, with nothing left to feed on, they’d starve to death. Mosquitoes all gone. Elegant.

Pressure-sealed jam bottles that can be opened by people who aren’t Prem Chand Degra: Seriously? What’s with those bottles? The ones you are supposed to twist off sharply to open? These devilish contraptions cause untold hurt and mental agony to millions of people, who struggle for minutes trying to twist the lids off, only to have them easily opened by some smug jerk who lands up at the right moment, when it’s about to come off anyway thanks to the efforts of all the previous people who had a go. The usual lecture on technique, strength and overall awesomeness (delivered in invariably mocking tones) that follows is one of the scourges of modern civilization, having nipped many budding romances in the . . er . . .bud. Better jam bottles for everyone.

A system to predict sports results: If a stupid octopus can get it right, it can’t be that hard for our finest mathematical minds to figure out a foolproof way to predict the outcomes of sporting events? Think of the benefits. Irate groups of moronic fans can start burning effigies and stoning players’ houses even before the match begins – giving them more time to plan things out. Clueless TV panelists can conduct the post-match analysis at a convenient evening slot, even if the game is to be televised in the wee hours of the morning. In fact, sports bodies can entirely avoid actually organising the games altogether, and merely publish the results in advance – huge savings. Suresh Kalmadi would wholeheartedly approve. In fact, I’d suggest that Mr. Kalmadi provide the seed fund for this project, if not for his recently demonstrated skills in not being able to raise funds.

Products that prevent their owners from acting like douchebags: It can’t be that hard to make car horns that deliver an electric shock to the driver if used incessantly in a traffic jam. Or a cell-phone that heats up to red-hot temperatures if used in a movie hall or auditorium. Or whisky that begins to taste like complan if the drinker starts misbehaving with a member of the opposite sex. Or a necktie that chokes its wearer if the latter happens to be Arnab Goswami. Or a deodorant that, by osmosis, transfers itself onto all those smelly people on the bus, who need it far more than you do. The possibilities are as utilitarian as they are endless.

See? There’s a host of ways that scientific research and invention can be used to actually help people, instead of just generating pointless knowledge that has no application outside of quizzes and possibly the Discovery Channel. It’s very interesting to learn that the planet Jupiter is primarily composed of hydrogen, but most of us can live without knowing this, especially if it’s costing us several crores to maintain an elaborate set-up that generates such interesting but pointless facts.

Considering that much of our tax money goes into funding the government’s hare-brained research programmes, it’s only fair that we start demanding that they stop meddling about with frivolous things like launching satellites that plunge into the ocean, researching obscure animal husbandry practices and rinderpest eradication, and get cracking on stuff we really care about. Like cutlet flavoured ice-cream, for a start.

One way to sum all this up is to say that science is creative, rather than foundational.

Children of today are often tangled between their choice of subject and decision of their parents. In a recently concluded survey, it was revealed that as much as 76 percent of today’s youth that it was their parents and not them who took decision of subject in higher educational plans. This clearly suggest that even in today’s so-called free and youth-oriented society, youth have a little say when it comes to receiving education.

The statistics further revealed that the worst sufferers were children from Asia-Pacific and a huge majority of parents in this demographic region expect and ‘forced’ their wards to take Science as a subject despite their children desiring to opt for streams such as Commerce and Arts. Decisions of parents like this in today’s civilized society clearly suggests that there is still a lot to be done before one can say that the world is free from Fuehrers and Czars.

Parents need to learn that they cannot play with a life and when it comes to their own children, things like life-influencing decisions can just not be influenced to such an extent. While parent’s advice is all that necessary, yet the final authority of decision-making for taking higher education’s stream should be best left to teachers and school/college if not with the children. This is because it is the teachers and the school/college authorities who know all about a student, his liking, areas of interests, and every relevant fact, which helps in making a right, thoughtful, and informed decision for the students.

If the future of our future citizens can be left in hands of the best, the burdens of ‘unrealistic expectations’, suicide tendencies after failure in exams, and job frustrations at a later stage can be eliminated at the first place itself. After all, there is always a need of a right man at the right time and at the right place and this can be met only by putting the right student in the right stream as per his or her abilities rather than as a matter of parents’ choices.