What Got You Interested in Science?

I must take issue with the requirement that to be considered a "scientist", one must have at least a bachelaurate. I have more than adequate credit hours, but have never actually received any conferred degree, and I have worked both as a scientist and an engineer.

A scientist is anyone who rigorously follows the scientific method. Conferred degrees do not necessarily have anything to do with it. The first scientists certainly had no degrees. And as I have stated before, I know far too any degreed idiots.

But, to answer the question, I first became interested in science as a youth, following the Gemini program back in the early 60s. So great was my enthusiasm that my family and friends used to say that they would know when the space age had truly arrived when I stopped watching manned launches and landings.

In addition, my mother also began allowing me access to her science fiction library in about 1967. I read everything I could get my hands on by such authors as Robert A. Heinlein, E.E. Smith, Arthur C. Clarke and Professor Asimov.

It is worth pointing out that many of these authors were very careful with the science they used in their writing. Indeed, R.A.H. mentioned in his memoirs that he spent a week working out orbital mechanics equations to get a result which occupied a single paragraph in one of his books.

I agree wholeheartedly with Dr. Moose.

What difference does it make if one has credentials or not?

Wisdom doesn't come from reading books or attending classes. Wisdom comes from showing up for life!

As for answering the question: I gravitated towards matters technical because of my perception that the one place where I could find certainty, predictability and some semblance of rational behavior was in the fields of science and technology..

Now, six decades later, I am still engaged in creating devices used in scientific research but have grown much more adept at predicting human behavior.

The Laughing Jaguar

You're right but.

Anyone who is really interested in science or engineering is still best off doing a standard Uni course. That way they'll understand the lingo, be able to follow the discussions and understand explanations.

It shows up when talking to un-academic "engineers", they can be very smart, highly motivated and very knowledgeable in their chosen area, but often don't understand some important bit of background information.

Look at the guys building "super efficiency" motors, they often seem to not quite understand relationships between temperature, heat, specific heats, energy content of fuels, techniques for integrating over time, standard types of thermodynamic cycles etc. They may know what they're doing but they don't sound like they do.

There's a reason all that stuff is taught in uni courses (and it's not to keep people out)

Absolutely true, and I will be the first to admit that there is a lot of stuff I don't know. But! I will also state categorically that, if a man who has a basic understanding of what he is doing is willing to listen, to learn everything there is to learn about what he is doing and to pick the brains of everyone who knows more than he does, he can do anything. Too many college kids arrive with their sheepskins in hand thinking that they already know everything. Most have to learn the hard way that what they learned in school is not necessarily the way things work in the real world. The one thing that the non-grad has going for him is that he usually already knows that he doesn't know and is willing to learn.

As a senior Petty Officer in the Navy, I was expected to have a junior Seaman under one arm, and a junior Officer under the other. Some might be surprised to learn of the dressings down I've administered to some of the junior officers I served with, and perhaps even more surprised to learn how in every case, my superiors supported me.

The simple truth is that, be he military or civilian, a man's education begins after he graduates. A university education at it's best teaches a man how to learn.

"Too many college kids arrive with their sheepskins in hand thinking that they already know everything..." Dead right. Many don't (yet) realise they need years of hard-won experience before they're much use.

Some don't learn fast enough and must be promoted to get them out of harms way.

"Some don't learn fast enough and must be promoted to get them out of harms way."

That statement makes me laugh and makes me sad at the same time, because it's so true.

The last position I had was as a contract designer for systems needed on a Fusion Reactor. It was my experience in manufacturing that made the difference, not my knowledge of mechanical design and materials.

I've taught enough to recognize that engineers and scientists with just theories in their heads and no experience getting their hands dirty and not going to contribute as much.

Years in the auto industry taught many that anyone who didn't talk to a mechanic while designing a car was destined to fail. Formal education is overrated as a source of inventive excellence.

L.J.

Dignity of labour and grasping of hands on experience, every theory man should subject himself based on available opportunities. The so called white collar prejudices -a probable barrier to scientists or practitioners of science towards en route to perfect knowledge.Book worm Educationists best remember pages and contents.

*Scientific facts are tested and proven.

*Have universal testability and workability.

*Science is an open book and a ready reckoner.

*The best of human contribution is the systematic evolution and constant development of science for the whole sum benefit to man kind.

*Science has no bearing on time[answers past, present and future]

*Science is the very basis for all developments[ engineering,Management, R&D, agriculture, environment, technology, medicine and so many]

*Science is a reliable support to all seek development and knowledge.

*Science interlinks humanity for a rational understanding, uniformity of perceptions and facts.

My Dad is a scientist and he certainly got me interested in diversity and taxonomy in the wonderful time we spent together on beaches and in the woods when I was a child.

I intended to study medicine when I first went to university, but I got diverted into the arts and philosophy, and didn't follow up on the science for many years.

I got personally interested in virology in the early eighty's when I lost my first friend to HIV. I was used to thinking that medicine had the cure for everything, and I was very disillusioned that the industry had nothing to offer. That increased my interest in natural products, especially the hunt for antiviral treatments.

I didn't get a science degree until much later. I accidentally stumbled on a powerful adjuvant to HEP-B vaccine while getting the vaccination (which takes a year) - the nurse made me feel so guilty about the results, that I turfed my successful arts career to go back to uni and learn scientific research methods to figure out what and how this could be applied - I figured I'd pay for my education by making a contribution in the field. That is the reason why I have a science degree.