My essays reflect this. The chapters in this book are arranged in three groups, but they all fall together. The chapters are meant, dare I say, as an exhortation to my nonscientist readers to open their minds to the pleasures of science and to my scientific readers to become more literate and passionate about what they do. I have tried to show that science is an intensely human endeavor, not some cold, abstract exercise that can succeed only if the investigator is reduced to the status of a logically acting automaton. Whether in the choice of subjects or the mode of study, science is an expression of the personality of the scientist as well as his or her training, a matter of intuition as well as logic.
Scientists are by ambition, love, fear, and greed, just as bankers and ball players are.
Because science is so personal an undertaking, there is a lot of bad science and even cheating. There is little intelectual endeavor in secondhand work and correspondingly little spiritual reward. Science should be much more. I believe that good science is produced only by broadly literate scientists, otherwise inspiration fails and one is doomed to ape the results of others. Scientists are also passionate, for the creative processes and the results of science are aesthetically rewarding.