Chapter 10: The Scientist
Let’s conclude by turning our gaze inward. Knowing that science thrives on a diversity of styles and techniques, can we nevertheless identify dominant patterns of behavior, ethics, and motivations?
“One thing I have learned in a long life: that all our science, measured against reality, is primitive and childlike -- and yet it is the most precious thing we have.” [Einstein, 1879-1955]
Isaac Newton [1642-1727], a man known more for his arrogance than for humility, said near the close of his life:
“I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the sea-shore, and diverting myself in now and then finding a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.”
Scientists’ Characteristics
The traits possessed by successful scientists are seldom examined systematically in college or graduate school. They are not the traits that one would choose in an idealized characterization of a scientist. Nor are they revealed by courses and tests. Most courses and tests emphasize temporary fact accumulation, a worthy but largely unnecessary acquisition in an age of ready access to reference information. Some personal characteristics are so pervasive among scientists that they appear to be essential for scientific success. Others are common, advantageous, but not essential.
Essential Characteristics
• persistence: This necessary characteristic encompasses traits such as dogged perseverance, patience, tenacity, thoroughness and singleness of purpose. Perhaps, attainment of a Ph.D. demonstrates persistence more than any other capability. As a musician friend told me, daily practice encounters peaks of surging progress and bogs of apparent stagnation. Both are transitory stages that must be outlasted; persistence is the bridge. For scientific success, persistence must continue beyond research and through publication.
“Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education alone will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.” [Hoenig, 1980]
“Let me tell you the secret that has led me to the goal. My only strength resides in my tenacity.” [Pasteur, 1822-1895,a]
Persistence is not always a virtue. One needs to recognize when to let go -- unlike the weasel, reduced to a skull, found with jaws still imbedded in the throat ruff of a living eagle. It is naive optimism to think that any problem can be solved just by working harder. If a problem is reaching diminishing returns, it should be abandoned. Perhaps the problem is posed wrongly:
