In situations where learning is about building on the knowledge base, about basic research, questioning accepted theories which are all abstract in nature, then the discipline of the purists will perhaps be more rigorously followed.
Republicans say the same thing aboutbasicresearch being "underfunded, " so Congress, at this stage in history, is not an entity capable of fundamentally saying no to the new spending to be proposed.
Although Full did not set out to become a robotics expert, his basicresearch discoveries about how creatures--from cockroaches to people--move has become a cornerstone of much work.