A Recipe for a Scientist!

When people think ‘scientist,’ they usually think old, white, cishet, male, socially inept and alienatingly intelligent. Unfortunately, this is a self-perpetuating stereotype. Many kids are put off from pursuing science, as they simply can’t picture themselves ever being a scientist. As astronaut Sally Ride said, ‘You can’t be it, if you can’t see it.’ These stereotypes are also an issue when it comes to public engagement. Scientists are seen as unrelatable, and science as inaccessible, so people avoid engaging with it and miss out on the wonders that science can show us and the critical way of thinking it can teach us.

So, let’s for a moment try to forget all the preconceptions of what a scientist is. Forget Einstein, forget Schrödinger, forget Sheldon. And let’s build a good scientist.

Ok, so, what makes a good scientist? Top of most people’s list would be ‘brains’! Well, perhaps if you’re a neuroscientist, but let’s put brains to one side for a moment, because top of my list is quite the opposite: heart. Passion. Love. You have to love the science you do enough to not give up even when you get frustrated at an equation you can’t work out, or your experiment fails AGAIN or your code throws up 50 unknown errors. That’s not to say science has to be your whole life. Like in any relationship, it’s important to have friends and hobbies and you-time too! Doing science has its ups and downs and so love is the lifeforce of a scientist. It keeps them motivated and curious. It’s what makes them do the science.

But doing it well? That takes two things that may initially seem at odds: creativity and discipline. Science is all about pushing the boundaries of human knowledge. You need creativity to think up new questions, to think up possible solutions to problems that have never been solved before, to piece bits of knowledge together that build a meaningful picture.

So we give the scientist we are building creativity and they have all these wonderful ideas, but, whoops, they have just thought up that the moon is made of cheese. And they are very passionate about it. Add a spoonful of discipline, and they realise that their ideas need to be backed up by evidence and they start performing experiments that are thorough and repeatable. To be able to gather evidence for an idea, the idea must have some observable consequences. For example, the idea that the moon is made of cheese would have the observable consequence that the moon surface samples the Apollo missions brought home would have tasted great on a cracker. Sadly, basalt and anorthosite are not tasty dairy products and so the cheese moon idea has been disproved. Discipline dictates that it must be abandoned in favour of the idea backed up by the evidence of some rather inedible rocks. It is discipline that directs the creativity and allows scientists to make meaningful progress.

Our scientist now has enough passion to make them do the science, and creativity and discipline to make them do it well. What else? Well there’s no point doing the science if you don’t share it, so let’s give them a splash of communication skills. Look at them go! They are writing papers to share with their peers, they are lecturing students, they are chatting to someone at the bus-stop about nuclear fusion (what can I say, I’m a northerner!). Now the good science they have done can be put to use in advancing technology, inspiring others and becoming the foundation for more scientific discovery. They are now also able to collaborate; combine their skills with people from other organisations, fields and disciplines in order to make better progress than ever before! Far from the solitary genius, our scientist knows that the best results are usually achieved by diverse teams working together. 

Some may argue that there should be ‘science for science’s sake’, but most people would agree that a big part of the point of science is to improve and enrich the experiences of humans and other lifeforms on this planet. Therefore, let’s give our scientist a generous pinch of compassion and a large dash of integrity, so they choose to invest their time and skills into research that will put some good into the universe.

Our scientist is nearly complete! Now we pick up the brains again and decide our scientist could probably do with some. But the amount of brains is far less significant than the other ingredients, and rather difficult to measure, so do not be disparaged if our scientist doesn’t ace every exam or win every scholarship; they are still a good scientist.

Mix in the brains and tadaa! Our scientist is built! What do they look like? Whatever you’d like. Mine is 5’3” and has a rainbow pixie cut.