Space programs definitely do science and stuff. All I meant to say was that Venus might not be the lowest hanging fruit for scientific discovery. It’s really expensive to go there. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t.
I see now how my post could read as an elon-fanboi type “colonize all the things” and that was not what I intended. I do think Atmospheric sensor clusters on Venus would be pretty awesome. It could give us an interesting set of insights into a wildly different environment.