TITLE: The Split Mind of a Scientist
AUTHOR: Eugene Wallingford
DATE: May 23, 2008  3:17 PM
DESC: 
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BODY:
Someone pointed me toward a
<A HREF="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IK1nMQq67VI">
   video of a talk</A>
given at Google by John Medina on his new book <EM>Brain
Rules</EM>.  I enjoyed the talk and will have to track
down a copy of the book.  Early on, he explains that
the way he have designed our schools and workplaces
produce the worst possible environments in which for
us to learn and work.  But my favorite passage came
near the end, in response to the question, "Do you
believe in magic?"

<BLOCKQUOTE><EM>
Hopefully I'm a nice guy, but I'm a really grumpy scientist,
and in the end, I'm a reductionist.  So if you can show me,
[I'll believe it].  As a scientist, I have to be grumpy about
everything and be able to be willing to believe
<STRONG>anything</STRONG>.  ...  If you care what you believe,
you should never be in the investigative fields -- ever.  You
can't care what you believe; you just have to care what's out
there.  And when you do that, your bandwidth is as wide as that
sounds, and the rigor ... has to be as narrow as as the biggest
bigot you've ever seen.  Both are resident in a scientist's
mind at the same time.
</EM></BLOCKQUOTE>

Yes.  Unfortunately, public discourse seems to include an
unusually high number of scientists are very good at the
"being grumpy about everything" part and not so good at the
"being able to be willing to believe anything" part.  Notice
that Medina said "<EM>be able to</EM> be willing to believe",
not "be willing to believe".  I think that some people are
less able to be willing to believe something they don't
already believe, which makes them not especially good
candidates to be scientists.
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