Identifying the author's primary assumption about scientific research

The text delivers a highly specific, word-for-word assessment of scientific research: "Scientific research is probably never completely valueless." It elaborates that no matter how silly or mechanical it seems, "there is always a chance that the results may be of value" to a future investigator.

Option (c) directly mirrors this double-negative construction ("never completely valueless" \rightarrow "never without some value"). Option (d) uses the extreme absolute "always very valuable," which ignores the author's qualification that much of it is "unintelligent" or merely uninspired baseline data.

Answer: (c).