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Hey, man. My great-uncle helped invent LORAN. My great-grandfather developed pinpoint carbonation, which basically makes bottled soft drinks possible. I'm all about increments.

My whole point is that when you make more than an incremental change you're going to run into trouble. You get a buy if what you're doing has no fundamental impact on the day-to-day lives of the proles - Newton, Hawking, Einstein, Mendeleev, etc - but if your research will actually change the behavior of society you're going to run into trouble. Likewise, if your research says that society has fundamentally changed (the ID guys, etc... although I'm loath to call them "researchers") you're in the same boat.

Knowledge must be pursued for its own sake. Knowledge in support of ideology never ends well.