I suggest you view it in a different light. In the 1980s, as this article points out, the human genome project was funded by the DOE and worked on at the national labs. The NIH came in and earmarked money just for the project. This pushed it from being second class citizen to being on a pedestal.<p>Much of the doubt expressed was based on the experience of the previous 10 years of the project, and the changing budget situation that took money from other fields.<p>As a somewhat distant parallel, the HST, once fixed, produced great astronomy. How much other great science wasn&#x27;t funded to put up the HST?<p>&gt;  Opponents doubt that the human genome project will quickly cure any diseases, either.<p>Spoiler: they were right.