I fully support that Improving the lives of people ought to be the main focus of science because research requires sacrifices and huge financial investments.
Scientific innovations have assisted in making life easier for humans it has helped us treat and eradicate a lot of dangerous diseases, made transportation easier as well as many other great beneficial innovations. I believe improving our lives should continue to take precedence. A lot of resources are used in scientific researches and innovations and I believe these things should reflect positively on the lives of people. For example the popular space x program which is geared at space exploration has spent millions of dollars on an exercise that has virtually no benefit to humans at the moment whereas we have more pressing issues at hand like global warming which posses a direct danger to the earth.
Furthermore, scientific explorations can sometimes be dangerous or even fatal if things don’t go as planned therefore, “of what use is the loss of human lives if we do not benefit?”.
A good example of this was the deep sea exploration attempt by a newly constructed submarine whose main purpose was for people to go sightseeing around the Atlantic which sank so many years ago. The submarine after reaching the bottom of the sea imploded due to an error that lead to rapid pressure changes in the tank. Four individuals lost their lives that day for a project that even when successful, did not really serve any use to the general population as the cost for getting on one was quite prohibitive.
In conclusion, science should continue to focus on innovations that benefit the general population because of risk and cost requirement.