Heck yeah, so long as they don't adjust for current market price.. ie the same amount of btc given for the same amount of time of hashing. So let's say I get 1 btc every other day (which is about what I get now), then I would help out the new project so long as I still made 1btc (or more) every other day.
I'm all about advancing protein folding, SETI, whatever, but if they pay less, I'll just keep mining for slush
But given equal (or better) pay, I'd more likely do the other projects, since I want to meet a hot alien woman