7 



How to Become a Scientist 

 High School Years 



Since we began this book with a statement that 

 science is merely the elaboration of what a healthy curious 

 child does in order to build up a useful set of ideas about 

 the nature of the world, we should perhaps have entitled 

 this chapter "How to Remain a Scientist." One is reminded 

 here of an aphorism of Hippocrates: "In the first place, do 

 no harm." AppHed to remaining a scientist this essentially 

 means, "In the first place, be sure you don't lose your 

 natural curiosity and your ability to draw useful conclusions 

 from observed facts." A good part of the influence exerted 

 on children by other human beings restrains curiosity and 

 independence and replaces them with reliance on the accu- 

 mulated wisdom of older people. These influences are by no 

 means all bad nor are they necessarily exerted as a result 

 of bad motives. In point of fact, our most characteristic 

 capacity as human beings is our abihty to learn directly 

 from other people without having to experience everything 

 ourselves. This ability to profit by other people's experience 

 is of course a great time-saver. It also saves us the pain of 

 having to perform a lot of tests and experiments that turn 

 out badly. Like all virtues, however, the tendency to take 

 other people's word for the nature of things should not be 



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