Public Lecture by Professor Martin Chalfie (2008 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry): The Continuing Need for Useless Knowledge

In 1939, the first director of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Abraham Flexner, wrote an article in Harper’s Magazine entitled “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge.” In this article, he questioned “whether our conception of what is useful may not have become too narrow to be adequate to the roaming and capricious possibilities of the human spirit,” and he argued that real discoveries are made when scientists are allowed to explore the world without recourse to usefulness. Several Nobel prizes have been given for discoveries tangential to what was initially studied.  I will argue that “useless knowledge” is needed as much today as in the past to improve human well-being and health. I will also suggest ways that we can encourage the finding of the unexpected, the discoveries that will enable future scientific revolutions.