I'm not sure if science, or more personally my life, needs a "final goal" in order to remain effective on some level. I think science can function on a useful level without identifying some final goal for which it is striving. But that doesn't preclude the possibility that science, or my life, should have a goal. For instance, what if all science was taught in the following manner (in a more thorough and nuanced manner of course!): - A series of problems or inadequecies in the world are cataloged - Those that are both enormously troublesome and also susceptible to scientific scrutiny are considered - And then the goal becomes addressing these troublesome issues that we suspect science can improve The above is silly, but I'm trying to suggest that by letting science wander and not striving for specific goals, science loses much of its functionality. Instead of alleviating the environmental burden of an oil spill, you learn about the combustive properties of oil in space...granted that information could be relevant, but it certainly is not among the most pertinent. And I know Paul, if reading this, is thinking "evolution evolution evolution" - and evolution is an undirected process that has more than adequately addressed the difficulties of life - but it does so incredibly slowly and with other difficulties/sacrafices built in. I'm just not sure it is so easily analogous, however much it may seem in the first instance.