Is Useless Information Really Useless?

At one point or another, almost everyone who has sat in a classroom lecture has questioned whether the information presented (and intended to be learned) was useful. It begs the question—would the information in that lecture ever be needed? The pursuit of knowledge considered to be “useless” is a criticism of much basic science research; such pursuits are generally deemed to be a waste of time and money. It is felt that research must produce a solution to a problem in the form of a treatment or product that can be useful immediately and, most importantly, result in a financial return on the money invested for conducting the research. Is this really true? In The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge, Abraham Flexner suggested that just trying to solve current problems does little to help solve larger problems for the future. Flexner felt that students should be allowed to pursue personal curiosity and to discover knowledge that might or might not be considered useful either at the time or in the future.¹

What does that have to do with wound care? As a practitioner looking at a wound, has a question ever arisen as to why something looks as it does or what might be the cause of what is happening with the patient? If so, did this curiosity lead to asking questions or even some “research” to satisfy that curiosity? If an answer was found, did it lead to some “useful” treatment? Interestingly, this is how discovery usually starts—with one small piece of information that leads an investigator to continue searching for answers. That piece of information combined with “useless” information discovered by others can lead to the development of truly world-changing inventions; an example of this is Einstein’s theory of relativity published in 1905. The theory sounded good, but there did not seem to be any useful application (yet). Almost 100 years later, scientists developed a navigation system based on reading signals from orbiting satellites, our global positioning system (GPS). During the development, it was noticed that the earth’s gravity and the movement of the satellites resulted in the clocks speeding up or slowing down, causing an error of 38 milliseconds in time and locations per day. This resulted in the GPS tracking being incorrect by as much as 7 miles! After incorporating Einstein’s calculations with theirs, the scientists were able to correct the problem and provide the technology many depend on every day.²

On a more local scale, several research projects conducted in our wound center have been the result of a question or suggestion proposed by one of the staff members. Exploring that curiosity has led to interesting solutions to problems related to evaluating and managing patients and their wounds. Wound care will not be changed as a result of exploring this curiosity, but perhaps someday the information might be the springboard to lead others to more significant discoveries. To quote Flexner, “…throughout the whole history of science most of the really great discoveries, which ultimately proved to be beneficial to mankind, had been made by men and women who were driven not by the desire to be useful but merely the desire to satisfy their curiosity.”³ Does that make you curious enough to generate some so-called useless information?

Terry Treadwell, MD, FACS

Editor-in-Chief, Wounds

woundseditor@hmpglobal.com