> this is also a stunning example of survivorship bias.
No, it's an example of why you have to allow people to pursue what at the time look like "curiosities", even though most of them don't go anywhere--because the very small portion that do go somewhere, end up changing the world, and we don't know in advance which ones those are going to be.
It's quite true that the funds we have for this are a finite resource. But that doesn't mean that "foreseeable practical applications" is a useful filter for how to deploy that resource.
No, it's an example of why you have to allow people to pursue what at the time look like "curiosities", even though most of them don't go anywhere--because the very small portion that do go somewhere, end up changing the world, and we don't know in advance which ones those are going to be.
It's quite true that the funds we have for this are a finite resource. But that doesn't mean that "foreseeable practical applications" is a useful filter for how to deploy that resource.