[Otterly99]

Honestly, scientists too. I did 10 years of research after deciding that it was not worth it. There is a vast amount of research with no direct application that gets published under the assumption that more knowledge is always better, but in my experience scientists rarely question the usefulness of their research (because most of the time, they find it interesting, which is motivating enough).

Granted, I am talking about harmless subjects, but there is also the dimension of resource usage that almost no scientist considers (the amount of plastics and chemicals used in biochemistry and cell biology is... concerning).