Blog 23

I think that the professor being interviewed had interesting reasons for why he ranked certain virtues above others. For example, he personally would give the virtue of humility a ten out of ten, but recognized that the scientific community as a whole would rank it as a three out of ten. His reasoning was that there are certain scientists that will not give up on their own ideas, and sometimes they are actually right. I think that certain scientists have had success in research, by demonstrating certain virtues more heavily than others. The virtues that are emphasized more, can be slightly different for each scientist. It depends on their past experiences. One virtue that I value as much as the professor was collaboration. With technology allowing for communication all over the world, I think that it is very easy to collaborate with other lab groups. However, just because these opportunities are available, it does not mean that people are taking advantage of them. Moreover, I am in agreeance that curiosity, skepticism, and honesty are the three most important virtues. They help fuel the fire towards making new discoveries. To me, skepticism seems like the adult version of the scientist, the curiosity seems like the childish thought process where thoughts can be fluid and unjudged, and honesty is the universal rule that allows for true discoveries to be made. The combination of these three virtues allows for researchers to uncover the truths about the natural world.

As Aristotle claims that humans are rational animals, I can understand why certain scientific virtues and values have become less emphasized in the fight for grants. The end goal of a scientist is to discover the truths about the natural world. Nevertheless, this rational side of humanity is constantly being fought by the animalistic side of surviving each day. I still think that science allows for plenty of curiosity to be expressed, but compared to the early 1900’s it has substantially decreased.