From a 2006 book "The Scientist as Rebel" by Freeman Dyson (page 25):
"The scientific advances of the nineteenth century and the first half
of the twentieth were generally beneficial to society as a whole,
spreading wealth to rich and poor alike with some degree of equity. The
electric light, the telephone, the refrigerator, radio, television,
synthetic fabrics, antibiotics, vitamins, and vaccines were social
equalizers, making life easier and more comfortable for almost
everybody, tending to narrow the gap between rich and poor rather than
to widen it. Only in the second half of our century has the balance of
advantage shifted. During the last forty years, the strongest efforts
in pure science have been concentrated in highly esoteric fields remote
from contact with everyday problems. Particle physics, low-temperature
physics, and extragalactic astronomy are examples of pure sciences
moving further and further away from their origins. The intensive
pursuit of these sciences does not do much harm, or much good, to
either the rich or the poor. The main social benefit provided by pure
science in esoteric fields is to serve as a welfare program for
scientists and engineers."
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Ludwik Kowalski, a retired physicist
5 Horizon Road, apt. 2702, Fort Lee, NJ, 07024, USA
Also an amateur journalist at http://csam.montclair.edu/~kowalskil/cf/