Basic science creates unpredictable needs by remodeling the technical milieu.

Evidence

E. E. David (note 156) comments that society can only be aware of the needs it feels in the present state of its technological milieu. It is of the nature of the basic sciences to discover unknown properties which remodel the technical milieu and create unpredictable needs. — Jean-François Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 711