While some research may be silly or even wasteful, it is very difficult to predict what that research is in advance by scientists, let alone politicians. Indeed, the history of science shows us that many research proposals initially deemed silly, proved to be immensely important to our understanding of the world, as well as for financial gains.
Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson highlights a few such cases:

> In 1955, the U.S. Department of Agriculture funded a study named, ``The Sex Life of the Screwworm.'' This grant was mocked on the Senate floor as an example of government waste, and instigated the creation of a ``Golden Fleece Award.'' Screwworms feed on living tissue, often killing the host, and were a huge menace in the cattle industry. The initial grant was for $250,000. The outcome of that grant saved the cattle industry $20 billion in the U.S. alone, resulting in a 5 percent reduction in the price of beef. The Senator who mocked the grant later apologized.
> In the early 1960's NSF and NIH funded a marine biologist to study why jellyfish glow green, a topic that would surely have caught the attention of our Majority as being ``unworthy'' of federal funding. When this biologist, who was just following his scientific curiosity, isolated the green fluorescent protein from jellyfish in 1962, neither he nor his funders had any idea that his work would one day lead to advances in genetics, cell biology, developmental biology, and neurobiology, to a better understanding of cancer, brain diseases such as Alzheimer's, and other human diseases, and methods used widely by the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. In 2008, this work won a Nobel Prize.
> In 2006, NSF funded a $147,000 study named, ``Accuracy in the Cross-Cultural Understanding of Others' Emotions.'' In 2007, this grant was mocked on the House Floor as an example of government waste. In notable contrast, the Department of Defense and the Department of Homeland Security were both keenly interested in this research because of its application to soldiers operating among potentially hostile foreign populations, and to Transportation Security agents trying to detect any potential terrorists among travelers coming from all over the world. The scientist behind this work has been invited to speak to officials at both agencies many times.

Research funding is a complex issue that is consistently a point of contention amongst scientists and the government. Calls for more new methods of review (Ioannidis 2011) to campaigns humanizing scientists (#WeAreResearch) have sought to increase the funding pool and to improve how it is disbursed. Since much of the work is taxpayer funded senators have demanded that work be in the interest of the nation. Can "silly work" be in the interest of the nation?
Maybe not, but maybe so. It is the chance that it could that must be defended. Basic research needs freedom to ask questions for better understanding, not for better bottom lines. The internet grew out of scientists trying to share work amongst each other. Treatment for premature babies, termed "preemies," was fostered into the United States through a sideshow on Coney Island. Washing your hands before surgery with a disinfectant was ridiculed, landing Ignaz Semmelweiss out of a job and in an insane asylum.
In hindsight, it is easy to say how foolish we were to reject these breakthrough ideas. Arguably, not all the ideas scoffed at by Flake and others will turn out to be revolutionary, but freedom to explore ideas with curiosity and imagination as the only constraint is necessary for science to progress.
We welcome research from the outsiders, from students, from basic scientists, from political scientists, from citizen scientists. Write your next "silly" manuscript on Authorea.