faction with the status quo certainly is a stimulus to scientific progress. This dissatisfaction is manifested by boredom, the appeal of the mysterious, and the desire to improve circumstances.
“The most beautiful experience we can have is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion that stands at the cradle of true art and true science.” [Einstein, 1879-1955]
The desire to improve encompasses both oneself and one’s environment:
“How thankful I should be to fate, if I could find but one path which, generations after me, might be trodden by fellow members of my species.” [Lorenz, 1962]
• aggressiveness: Aggressive scientists tend to be highly successful and productive. Science is an obstacle course of puzzles, experimental problems, and bureaucratic hurdles, and success requires an aggressive unwillingness to be stopped by such obstacles. I am cautious, however, about interactions with aggressive scientists, as most of them seem to have trouble finding a balance between ethics and aggressiveness. Ethical barriers are not just problems to be overcome, and other scientists are not just tools to be used for furthering one’s progress.
Style determines whether aggressiveness is an asset. For example, we see quite different aggressive styles every day on the highway: some drivers fight the traffic, whereas others go with the flow much of the time, while anticipating congestion and seizing opportunities.
• self-confidence: Self-confidence fosters a willingness to face challenges and a constructive optimism, relatively free of worries about the opinions of others and about whether the problem can be solved. Both self-motivation and self-confidence are needed if one is to lead a scientific discipline into new productive directions, rather than just following along with the majority. Self-confidence inspires acceptance of one’s opinions by others, in spite of scientists’ claims that they are influenced only by the evidence, not by the presentation.
Scientists are subject to many of the same fears as most people. They fear mediocrity, completing a life of science only to conclude that they had little or no significant impact on science. They fear humiliation, being proved wrong in print or, worse yet, being shown to have made some mistake that ‘no real scientist should make.’ They fear that someone else will get the credit for their discoveries. They fear that they cannot keep up with the pace of science and are being left behind [Sindermann, 1987].
Perhaps instead they should fear that they have lost proportion: that they are sacrificing too much of their personal life to science, that they have abandoned some ethical values because those values hampered achievement of scientific objectives.
“What is then the quality which enables some men to achieve great things in scientific research? For greatest achievements men must have genius -- that elusive quality that so often passes unrecognized, while high ability receives reward and praise. But for achievement genius is not enough, and, for all but the greatest achievements, not necessary. What does appear essential for real achievement in scientific research is a combination of qualities, by no means frequent, but commoner than is genius. It
