What's a Scientist?

Since they live in a town famed for science, the students of Tennessee's Oak Ridge High School might have been expected to have some pretty flattering things to say about scientists. But when Science Teacher J. R. Blair asked his 14 to 16-year-old pupils to write down their notions of what a scientist is and does, he got some disconcerting answers.

Scientists, it seems, are people who "work with science and drink coffee." They invent new "thoiries," or work on such things as the "salt vacine." They are "shabby dressed," often indulge in utter nonsense ("I don't see any reason for putting a satilight up"). Without them, one student conceded, "we would not have any of the modern conveniences that we have today." But the scientist, said another, "does not need to be a genius. Albert Einstein had a very low IQ." Snorted still another pupil: "I don't think he has to be so brilliant he doesn't have any common sense."

To one pupil, scientists may come in any size or shape, but "they are interesting only in science, talk about science all the time, have a mild temper and patience beyond endurance." The poor wretch of the laboratory "doesn't hardly ever have time to fix his self up, he is so busy experimenting. Usually single--if married not many kids, if any. But a real brain. Doesn't hardly ever go to bed." "I believe," said one student, "the typical scientist would stay in his little laboratory most of the time except to eat and go to conventions, etc."

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