"Steve Harris" writes:

"Thomas McDonald" wrote in message
...

"David James Polewka" wrote in
message
...
http://www.panix.com/~clays/Una/una3.html

THE MOTIVES OF SCIENTISTS
...snip...
"curiosity" explanation for the scientists' motive just
doesn't stand up.

David,

This fellow is a comedian. How interesting that he
feels competent to
rule on what is "normal".

FWIW, pretty much everyone I know who has a very
narrow scientific focus
has a range of curiousity and excitement about other
areas. Hell, even
Gould was a Red Sox fan, and wrote on baseball.



Most scientists I know read things like Science News or
Science Digest, and have an avid interest at least in all
areas of science (and usually many other areas of learning
as well). Alas, we live in a world of specialization which
particularly rewards specialists, grant-wise.

...snip...

When Albert Einstein delivered a eulogy for his friend and fellow
scientist Max Planck, he said some people become scientists for
various reasons, as a way to compete, to achieve fame, but some,
including Planck, did it because they wanted to know and under-
stand the world.

Also, from an essay by Martin Rees at
http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/rees03/rees_print.html:


It's good for us as researchers to address a wider public. It makes us
realize what the big questions are. What I mean by this is that in
science the right methodology is often to focus on a piece of the
problem which you think you can solve. It's only cranks who try to
solve the big problems at one go. If you ask a scientist what they're
doing, they won't say trying to cure cancer or trying to understand
the universe; they'll point at something very specific, progress is
made by solving bite-sized problems one at a time. But the
occupational risk for scientists is that even though that's the right
methodology, they sometimes lose sight of the big picture. Members of
a lay audience always ask the big questions, the important questions,
and that helps us to remember that our piecemeal efforts are only
worthwhile insofar as they're steps towards answering those big
questions.