Dean’s Scholars annually hosts the Distinguished Lecture Series (DLS), a campus-wide lecture that invites outstanding individuals to speak at the university on unique and relevant science topics. Our past speakers include Nobel Laureates, a National Medal of Science recipient, and a Pulitzer Prize-winning author. Some of the key goals of this lecture series are to give undergraduates an opportunity to meet renowned figures in the scientific community, to engage students beyond the College of Natural Sciences, and to foster scientific curiosity in the broader Austin area, particularly among high school students.

Meet & Greet
Room: TBD
3 - 4 PM

The Continuing Need for Useless Knowledge

In 1939, the first director of the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, Abraham Flexner, wrote an article in Harper’s Magazine entitled “The Usefulness of Useless Knowledge.” In this article he questioned “whether our conception of what is useful may not have become too narrow to be adequate to the roaming and capricious possibilities of the human spirit,” and he argued that real discoveries are made when scientists are allowed to explore the world without recourse to usefulness. Several Nobel prizes have been given for discoveries tangential to what was initially studied. I will argue that “useless knowledge” is needed as much today as in the past to improve human well-being and health. I will also suggest ways that we can encourage the finding of the unexpected, the discoveries that will enable future scientific revolutions.

Lecture Details