This field is not necessarily glamorous, nor does it often produce immediate results, but it seeks to increase our basic understanding of living processes.
A finance minister should have a basic understanding of the country, know where the shoe pinches and, hence, have some compassion in policy formulation. An ability to understand economic issues should certainly be there.
When I was much younger, my siblings and I would routinely tune in to watch 'Bill Nye the Science Guy' on PBS. He was a fascinating instructor bent on helping kids achieve a basic understanding of science. When he engaged in politics, it was only very briefly if at all.
Our species needs, and deserves, a citizenry with minds wide awake and a basic understanding of how the world works.
When it comes to investments, I have to go to someone else to understand them, but then I have to make a judgment. I can't do that if I don't have a basic understanding myself.
But what is more, if we have succeeded in adding to the basic understanding of our universe and ourselves, we will have made a contribution to the totality of human culture.
It turns out that this part of the brain is one of the first areas that's attacked by Alzheimer's disease. So we can now use some of the basic understanding of this part of the brain to ask the simple question, 'What is going wrong with these special cells in the hippocampus at the very earliest stages?'
My father was a die maker for 39 years, so I had a basic understanding of the automobile industry and what the manufacturing world was like, just from the opportunity to spend time with him - just talking, because he was a car buff.
'Prison Notebooks' gives me a basic understanding of how power can influence people through cultural products and intellectual groups, so they will voluntarily support the hegemony.
At first, I simply wanted to get a basic understanding of sign language, but as time went on, I really got the bug and wanted to become proficient so that I could make good use of my skills.
