Saudi- Role of imagination in scientific advances

(MENAFN- Arab News) It was not so long ago that literacy was considered the measure of civilization forward thinking and promise among human societies. Even as recently as two or three hundred years ago literacy was not a forgone conclusion; it may even have had a certain rarity value to it. In the classic American novel To Kill a Mockingbird the precocious child heroine posits that one's social status is determined by how long one's family members have known how to read and write a single generation or two three or more. The further back we can lay claim to literate ancestors Scout Finch surmises the more we can lay claim to being 'quality folk.'
There is no longer any cachet in merely knowing how to read and write. In virtually all developed countries ours included literacy levels approach 100 percent. What does distinguish us I feel if not individually then certainly on a collective or national level is our dedication to science. Not merely to technology which has become a commodity but to science itself to the romance of exploration and pushing the frontiers of human knowledge.
And in my own version of Scout's observation about 'quality folks' I would even posit that there is a distinction to be made based on how long one's people have shown an active dedication to science. And if that were the case we in Saudi Arabia would fare rather well in the evaluation as the King Abdulaziz City for Science has been in operation since 1977. In that time we have explored both inner and outer space pushed the frontiers of nanotechnology and probed the future of energy production. We have in short been contributing to the international dialogue on science and technology for almost 40 years now.
A society's dedication to science is admirable precisely because it does not always seem practical or even necessary. At one time when the world was simpler and one could practice a trade and earn a living without ever reading a line of print the ability to read was similarly admirable. It had connotations of striving of achievement of reaching beyond quotidian needs and into idealism and aspiration. I think that every society on some level struggles with the decision to allocate funding to scientific research. I am speaking here particularly of science that may have no immediate practical applications. Its value is largely cerebral so how can one justify allocating funding to space exploration for example rather than building roads hospitals or sewers? And yet I would argue that we are much the richer if we can and do justify it.
To be sure some of the projects undertaken by the City for Science are eminently practical. I am particularly pleased to learn that we are making efforts to develop improved methods of desalinating seawater. With climate change drought and the loss of fresh water supplies is likely to become a pressing problem in the coming decades and desalinating water from the oceans may become a means of survival.
It may also be key to preventing the serious international conflicts over water supply that some have predicted.
For all the practical applications of science however I feel we should not judge its merit solely on its applicability. In exploring our world and beyond we inspire ourselves and others; we stretch the boundaries of human capability and imagination.