All discussions about science must at some point include some mention of those who are doing the science. We call these individuals “scientists.” There have been times during my career when I’ve felt like an anthropologist who has been set down in some remote location to observe a strange and most exotic tribe of humans. While this tribe shares many of the same phenotypical characteristics displayed by the rest of us, there are some characteristics that seem to be genetically hardwired into those who choose science as a career path. It is this special “scientist DNA” that drives some scientists into becoming diabolical lunatics hell-bent on world domination, and others to unleash some unspeakable creation that will force the rest of us to bow down in acknowledgement of their magnificence. It is this same unique DNA that causes scientists to go “BWAHAHAHA!” when they laugh.
Really?
For those of us who actually interact with scientists the notion that any of them would dream of being master of the world is absurd. The best scientists are so focused on their research they’re scarcely aware of the world outside of that work. True story: I once interviewed one the world’s foremost experts on fusion energy and when I dropped a casual reference to Star Trek, he asked: “What’s Star Trek?”
As for unleashing monsters that destroy the world as we know it, scientists live in the same world, if everybody’s gone who will provide for them? Scientists are notoriously poor hunters and gatherers and not so much at constructing shelters either. Has a scientist ever been featured on any of the Survivor television shows? Trust me, scientists are smart enough to know that in a world reduced to a primal state of existence, mesomorphs rule!
Also, contrary to what some in the political and theological arenas might have you believe, scientists are not self-congratulatory know-it-alls conspiring to wreck the socio-economic and moral fiber of human civilization. For one thing conspiracies require secrecy and scientists are notoriously bad at keeping secrets. Also conspiracies are usually spawned by cabals and scientists are notoriously non-cabalistic. They’re so absorbed in their work they’d forget to attend cabal meetings or pay their dues.
Finally, in 40 years of interviewing scientists, I have never heard a single “BWAHAHAHA!”
What I can tell you from personal experience is that scientists come in all shapes, sizes and dispositions. Some are deeply political (liberal and conservative), some are deeply religious, and some not so much on either of those topics. There are affable and empathetic individuals who seek human contact and interpersonal relationships, like the Leonard Hofstadter character on the TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory, and there are those like the Sheldon Cooper character in that series, who would not know what a TV sitcom is and could care less that you exist. As in all walks of life, the majority fall somewhere in between.
Some characteristics, however, are common to all the best scientists. They are obsessive and compulsive about their work and unflinchingly honest about the results they report because they have to be. Scientists seek to understand the rules of nature by asking questions and acquiring answers. They are like detectives only they don’t stop at who done it, they want to know why and how it was done and could it be done again only better. They propose answers based on a rigorous investigative method involving testing and analysis. These proposed answers are then made public for others to study and either refute or build-upon. This takes courage.
No one is tougher on a scientist than other scientists. Scientists do not want opinions, they want knowledge and personal feelings are seldom if ever spared in that quest. In that respect, science is a blood sport. When you publish research results that might represent years – maybe even a lifetime – of work to the intense scrutiny of your peers, the data will stand or fall on its own merits, but your interpretation of that data will be subject to challenges that may never go away. Every new question brings answers that not only raise new questions but sometimes resurrect old questions thought to have been settled. King Sisyphus and his boulder had nothing on science.
Finally, while those in the sciences are always loath to speak in absolutes, I can unequivocally tell you there are no dummy scientists. There are certainly naïve scientists and even more certainly there are arrogant and unjustifiably vain scientists, but dumb-bells need not apply. Science does not allow for frauds and poseurs, all such individuals are inevitably exposed and discarded into the bin of irrelevancy.
This is not true in the political and theological arenas from where the strongest critics of science and scientists seem to hail. I acknowledge that there are smart – even brilliant – politicians and theologians on the scene today, but there are also a great many individuals in both of these arenas that have proven themselves to be dumber than a bag of nails. Unfortunately, these individuals seem to draw the most attention from members of the media, an arena in which many of its members make those nails in a bag look smart (see Fox News).
Few scientists ever get rich. Even fewer get famous. But every scientist who does get rich and famous owes some measure of their fortune and fame to the knowledge accumulated by many other scientists who came before them. As Sir Isaac Newton, one of the greatest scientists in history, once wrote: “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.”
(Photo of JBEI scientists by Roy Kaltschmidt)