That is powerful writing. Powerful by orthodox literary standards. In my own notebooks I regard that kind of writing as bad. I call the trap that it falls into "letting language do my thinking for me."

Consider "directed toward a goal that people set up for themselves in order to have some goal to work toward." I've dropped the words artificial and merely. What work were they doing?

I think that the word artificial is imposing a binary, "natural" versus "artificial", on the way that we think about goals. The paradigm of a natural goal is having sex to start a family. The paradigm of an artificial goal is playing golf. Which is science? It has to fall in the artificial bucket, so it is like golf, and therefore of low value.

If I were writing in my own notebook, I would think that I had tricked myself. I've persuaded myself that science is low value. I look for the clever argument that I've used; its not there. I've been incautious in my use of language, stuck in the word artificial and failed to wonder whether there are any artificial goals that are surprisingly valuable.

merely is heavy with implications. One might set oneself a goal in order to have something to work towards, to avoid the tendency to sipping and sampling which so often defeats the aspirations of gifted beings. This might be within a larger context; the aspiration may be towards a noble and lofty goal. merely trashes all that. A simple little word that slots in easily, merely making the words flow more smoothly. And yet it has smuggled in heavy negativity. Once again language does our thinking for us, guiding us towards a conclusion, and concealing from the author his lack of justification.

Turning to the second quote, one notices that blindly is a powerfully pejorative word. Who wants to be blind? Here is does triple duty, with three meanings. First, we are doing science because we are curious about something that we do not know. It is a cliche to call such groping in the dark blind. So no-one can disagree that science marches on blindly. The phrase "real welfare" intensifies the negativity. Notice the weasel word real. Nothing and nobody can meet the test of having regard to real welfare because the word real licences us to raise the standard for what counts as welfare into an unknowable, remote future. Science must confess to not being able to foresee ultimate consequences and confess a second time to being blind.

The third meaning of blind refers to the reasonable critique. It is hard to respond appropriately to even foreseeable medium term consequences and scientists often fail to do so. Is this reasonable critique actually justified? The claims made by the previous two meanings of the word blind were true, even if unimportant, so it is tempting to nod this through. The third meaning gains our approval by the momentum of the first two meanings; another example of language doing our thinking for us.

If we can escape the momentum of language, the example of Louis Pasteur will spring to mind, or Humphrey Davy investigating flames to invent the safety lamp. Scientist sometimes pay close attention to the foreseeable, medium-term welfare of mankind.

Is it true to say that science marches on, obedient to the psychological needs of scientists, government officials, and corporate executives? Yes, this is obviously true. Yet it is only that sneaky little word only (which I left out; did you notice?) that makes this important.

Ponder the tale of medicinal chemist trying to explain to his boss that it is actually the mice that are in charge. Science can only march on if it obeys the mice. Leaving them out misses the point entirely. That little word only both makes the ringing phrase important-if-true and hopelessly-false.

Notice how hard this overlong comment works to expose how language does our thinking for us. It is an example of Brandolini's Law. Cultivate a horror of powerful writing, before it tricks you into believing falsehoods. No-one is coming to save you. Untangling how language does our thinking for us is too much work.