Hundreds of years of psychic research: Shit all result; procession of charlatans and impostures; no application; no advancement of human knowledge; not even conclusive evidence of paranormal phenomena. 200-300 years of scientific research: Modern industrial society; life-spans beyond 30; an advanced understanding of how the universe works. And I would never prejudge a research programme simply because it was only aimed at abstract knowledge.
Remember what I said earlier about just throwing numbers at stuff to make a point?
Hundreds of years?
I could argue that medicine has been researched for nearly 3000 years and it took a whole 2900 of those years for "modern medicine" to actually have exceptional results.
Oh or astronomy, since you specifically mentioned "how the universe works", has been around since before that even.
Sounds to me more like 1000's of years...
Therefore, by your own standard, we should at least allow for three millennium of research into each and every field before we can access whether or not it is useful or not. To me, that seems like a bit extreme, but maybe I'm just not as generous as you.
And I would never prejudge a research programme simply because it was only aimed at abstract knowledge.
Right, unless it didn't show the results you wanted.
Is that a fair comparison though? If you spend 90% of your time,money and resources on one area,and 10% on another,which of those will prosper?
I'd guess that a field that had less money and was looked down on would under preform. But thats just me.
Maybe we should be looking at research money and not something silly like time?