History Main / ForScience

** A few strips later, Gil flings open a door [[RightBehindMe half-expecting to find Agatha behind it]], [[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20140929 revealing a pair of scientists making out]]. Their attempts to attribute it to this trope falls more under IsThatWhatTheyreCallingItNow.

* This is the raison d'être of Dr. Odine in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVIII'', who doesn't care who he works for or what his inventions are used for as long as he gets to keep researching and inventing things. When he discovers that his research will eventually be developed into a working machine, which in turn is what's allowing the BigBad to project her consciousness back in time and wage war in the present, his reaction is to be thrilled that his ideas will be put to use.

* ''Machinima/FreemansMind'':

* Sarge, of ''Machinima/RedVsBlue'':

* The BigBad, Natla, in ''VideoGame/TombRaider'' has science as her motivation. [[spoiler: Being a former ruler of {{Atlantis}} and being the only one from the mythical city left alive, she plans to create a race of mutants to speed up evolution so that [[TheSocialDarwinist only the strong can survive]]]]. The [[VideoGame/TombRaider2013 remake]] ditches this motivation for a different one.

** Also in ''New Vegas'' we have the positive example Dr. Henry. He spends the entire game in a Super Mutant settlement trying to find a cure for the Nightkin's schizophrenia, and according to Arcade Gannon he's developed cures for several dangerous diseases in the past. He's not motivated by money, fame, or even a desire to help people ([[spoiler:seeing as how he also helped [[ANaziByAnyOtherName the Enclave]] develop their virus which would wipe out all mutants, ghouls, and "impure" humans]]). He does it for no other reason than the personal satisfaction and sense of accomplishment he gets from figuring out the solutions to these problems, the way one might feel a sense of accomplishment from solving a crossword puzzle or doing a SelfImposedChallenge in a video game. Nonetheless, Arcade feels a sense of admiration for how Henry has done so much without seeking personal gain for himself.

** Optional companion Curie in ''4'' is a rare positive example: she wants to explore the Commonwealth and improve her knowledge of the world's conditions (after having been locked in a Vault for 200 years) so that she can research the new diseases that have arisen in order to find effective means of treating and curing them.

* [[https://www.history.com/news/the-father-of-modern-gynecology-performed-shocking-experiments-on-slaves James Marion Sims]] is hailed as the "Father of Gynecology," pioneering the field at a time when there was a societal taboo in the treatment of women's reproductive organs, and his research led to the creation of the vaginal speculum, and a number of treatments and surgeries that would help in recovery after childbirth, as well as other vaginal maladies. Being a physician he established his practice in Alabama in the Antebellum period, and he would often tests his hypotheses of the effectiveness of his treatments on slave women he owned, or had borrowed from other slave owners who wanted them back to work as soon as possible. By all accounts, he performed experimental surgigical procedures on helpless women without the use of anesthesia.

* For the time being, the experiments using the Large Hadron Collider will mostly be for satisfying scientific curiosity (namely searching for the hypothetical Higgs boson). Whether any practical use can be made from such a discovery (which would provide insight to the quantum nature of mass) remains to be seen. There are also those who claim that the experiments are unethical, due to the potential for creating miniature black holes [[TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt which could destroy the planet]], but these fears are [[IncrediblyLamePun mostly groundless]] [[LampshadeHanging (REALLY!)]].

* In ''ComicBook/XMen #41'', there's a scientist who invents a nuclear-powered machine that both creates earthquakes and irradiates the ground. His colleagues think he's nuts for inventing such a dangerous weapon, but he assures them that [[JustThinkOFThePotential it will only be used for the benefit of mankind]].

** Also in ''New Vegas'' we have Dr. Henry. He spends the entire game in a Super Mutant settlement trying to find a cure for the Nightkin's schizophrenia, and according to Arcade Gannon he's developed cures for several dangerous diseases in the past. He's not motivated by money, fame, or even a desire to help people ([[spoiler:seeing as how he also helped the Enclave develop their virus which would wipe out all mutants, ghouls, and "impure" humans]]). He does it for no other reason than the personal satisfaction and sense of accomplishment he gets from figuring out the solutions to these problems, the way one might feel a sense of accomplishment from solving a crossword puzzle or doing a SelfImposedChallenge in a video game. Nonetheless, Arcade feels a sense of admiration for how Henry has done so much without seeking personal gain for himself.
** Many of [[BigBad the Institute]]'s experiments in ''VideoGame/Fallout4'' show shades of this. Such as [[spoiler:building synth gorillas]].

* In the MagicalGirl CrisisCrossover ''Fanfic/ShatteredSkiesTheMorningLights'', [[Franchise/SailorMoon Viluy]] takes her canon obsession with "gathering data" and her fetish for all things technological and[=/=]or mechanical [[UpToEleven to a new and horrifying extreme]], stating that she's willing to see countless billions suffer and all universes end as long as she gets data out of it. [[spoiler:She is later revealed to have performed SelfSurgery to bring herself even closer to her beloved tech.]]

** The Vault program as a whole qualifies as this. Neither the U.S. government nor Vault-Tec actually believed [[WorldWarIII nuclear war]] was a possibility, but played on people's fears and built over 100 high-tech nuclear shelters for the sake of performing insane social experiments on unsuspecting citizens. Only a handful of vaults actually protected people once the bombs dropped, while others did things like telling dwellers they'd all die if they didn't [[HumanSacrifice sacrifice someone every year]], ''intentionally'' letting in radiation, pumping in hallucinogenic gas, giving recovering addicts drugs, [[HumanPopsicle cryogenically freezing dwellers]], holding a man captive with nothing but a crate full of puppets for two years, and so on.

* While Dr. Quincy Wyatt of Nancy Werlin's novel ''Double Helix'' does have an intention to use his research to some better end, he remarks, after being asked of the legality of his work, "What a stupid thing to focus on, Eli. I thought you'd be interested in the ''science'' here."

* The ''Series/{{Life}}'' episode "Not For Nothing" had Prof./Warden Halliday who conducted a StanfordPrisonExperiment and incited his students to hurt each other just so he can see what happens. This causes one of the "prisoners" to kill one of the "guards". Halliday is arrested and when found guilty, he'll be charged with 20 counts of inciting to commit bodily harm which is 7 years.

** In a flashback to when Dr Natalie Lambert first met Nick, she claims this trope as to why she wants to help find a cure for his vampirism. We then cut to the present where Natalies admits to herself that [[RomanticVampireBoy that was a lie]].

* ''Series/ForeverKnight''. In the pilot episode, Nick needs human blood to have the strength to fight [=LaCroix=]. The woman with Nick encourages him to feed on her, as she's a historian and if she survives [[LivingForeverIsAwesome she'll be able to study the rise and fall of entire civilisations firsthand]].

* You really have to wonder what was going through the scientist's heads in ''TabletopGame/BleakWorld'' when [[WhatAnIdiot they thought]] [[EpicFail it was a good idea]] [[GoneHorriblyWrong to put dozens of demons]] [[TooDumbToLive and ghosts into a corpse]].

--->"Now, beat him with the metal rod... '''FOR SCIENCE!'''"

* All the [[FanNickname Sciencebots]] of ''Franchise/{{Transformers}}'' are practically programed to do stupid things FOR SCIENCE. ''[[WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated Animated]]'''s Perceptor has given up his personality to store more data in his head (his G1 counterpart was just [[SesquipedalianLoquaciousness extremely verbose]]); Wheeljack built five fire-breathing dinosaurs [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-aTbHsZJ9g (with not enough brains to tell their heads from their asses)]] just because he went to a natural history museum, and [[TheStarscream Starscream]] tends to [[WesternAnimation/TransformersAnimated clone]] [[WesternAnimation/TransformersPrime himself]] and make others into drones. There was also that monkey Primacron who built Unicron's G1 cartoon-verse body.

** The [[OurDwarvesAreAllTheSame Dwemer]] were said to have been, [[WitchSpecies in contrast to most elves]], a [[HigherTechSpecies highly scientific race]] who were able to develop complex machines and other fantastic devices, including a safe means of reading [[TomeOfEldritchLore the Elder Scrolls]]. They would also summon [[OurDemonsAreDifferent Daedra]] just to [[DidYouJustPunchOutCthulhu test their divinity]]. They were ruthless, amoral and arrogant, hostile to every other race they encountered and not above using them for experimentation and slave labour. Their scientific skepticism with Daedra and gods and reality itself eventually extended to encompass themselves, and in the First Era, their chief "Tonal Architect" Kagrenac attempted to make the Dwemer into [[AscendToAHigherPlaneOfExistence immortal ascended beings]] by breaking them down to their base elements and then reforging them -- it's possible Kagrenac succeeded or got the reforging step of the experiment wrong, but whatever the case, the entire Dwemer race simply vanished from the face of Nirn without a trace.

* [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman Doomsday]] was the result of this in the story ''ComicBook/SupermanDoomsdayHunterPrey''. An [[TheGreys alien]] MadScientist wanted to create the UltimateLifeForm so he took an infant, [[WouldHurtAChild shot it onto the surface of the DeathWorld that was prehistoric Krypton]], and scooped up the remains for cloning after it was eviscerated by the wildlife over and over to [[EvilutionaryBiologist accelerate the evolutionary process]]. After 30 years of baby murder, Doomsday eventually came to be. Since they had no plan or endgame, they had no way to prepare for him [[GeneticMemory remembering them killing him thousands of times]] and being ''pissed'' over it.

* [[ComicBook/TheDeathOfSuperman Doomsday]] was the result of this. An [[TheGreys alien]] MadScientist wanted to create the UltimateLifeForm so he took an infant, [[WouldHurtAChild shot it onto the surface of the DeathWorld that was prehistoric Krypton]], and scooped up the remains for cloning after it was eviscerated by the wildlife over and over to [[EvilutionaryBiologist accelerate the evolutionary process]]. After 30 years of baby murder, Doomsday eventually came to be. Since they had no plan or endgame, they had no way to prepare for him [[GeneticMemory remembering them killing him thousands of times]] and being ''pissed'' over it.

** Also in ''New Vegas'' we have Dr. Henry. He spends the entire game in a Super Mutant settlement trying to find a cure for the Nightkin's schizophrenia, and according to Arcade Gannon he's developed cures for several dangerous diseases in the past. He's not motivated by money, fame, or even a desire to help people ([[spoiler:seeing as how he also helped the Enclave develop their virus which would wipe out all mutants, ghouls, and "impure" humans]]). He does it for no other reason than the personal satisfaction and sense of accomplishment he gets from figuring out the solutions to these problems, the way one might feel a sense of accomplishent from solving a crossword puzzle or doing a SelfImposedChallenge in a video game.