> We don't seem to have a way to tell which crazy sentences will pan out
I think you're missing the OP's point: the point is that the sentence should read:
"How can we cure blindness?"
If it happens to be via monkey viruses, so be it. But you shouldn't start from "How can monkey viruses cure blindness" — it's not monkey viruses that are the reason to do research, it's blindness that's the reason.
"How can we provide clean energy as cheaply as possible" seems like a pretty big problem we need to solve. Maybe kite power isn't the answer, but it certainly looked like it could be at one point. It wasn't unreasonable to investigate it.
And I wouldn't have made that comment had they stated it that way. The problem with those phony problems is that the success criteria are binary, and not tied to metrics that allow for comparisons with alternatives.
If you problem is to generate power with kites, and you have built power-generating kites, then you won. But how good a power source is it in the grander scheme of things? Is it going to move the needle when it comes to CO2 emissions? Again, I don't mind the high school science fair stuff, but I don't think this has a high chance of being the ticket based on fundamentals.
I think you're missing the OP's point: the point is that the sentence should read:
"How can we cure blindness?"
If it happens to be via monkey viruses, so be it. But you shouldn't start from "How can monkey viruses cure blindness" — it's not monkey viruses that are the reason to do research, it's blindness that's the reason.