I agree that there should be research for the sake of research, but I don't think there's anything wrong with speculating about what practical benefits may accrue from the research, as long as it isn't argued that the research is conducted solely for those practical reasons. We can look for them, and even try to anticipate what they may be, but we must not allow them to become the raison d'être for research.
As for the humanists, their subject of study just isn't all that popular with people. Familiarity breeds contempt, as they say. ;) Il faut se dépêcher d'agir, on a le monde à reconstruire
There was a time when supersymmetric models were all the rage. Now supersymmetry is a requirement to make string theory consistent and string theory is all the rage, so SuSy lives on, even though people have burned the original SuSy papers they wrote in the 1980's. We have met the enemy, and he is us — Pogo
