What is the authentic value of science?

Nowadays the opinion is widely held that science and technology are very closely linked to each other, and that the value of the first depends on the implications it may have for the second. This opinion represents a serious mistake, which ignores the genuine nature of science, both historically and epistemologically, a mistake that may lead to an impoverishment of the scientific spirit and of human culture in general. In this essay, I intend to analyze the sources of the mistake in question and contrast it with an appropriate perspective to understand what is, and what should continue to be, the true scientific spirit.