Does Your Motivation Make You a Better Scientist?

This post is inspired by an article in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday the 4th of March. The article was about the evolution of God, and there were many things about the article that drove me nuts, but I'm only going to mention one them here, one that inspired this post.

The author of the article, in the process of analyzing the evolutionary imperative for the existence of religion and God, quotes a scientist named David Sloan Wilson, an "adaptationist", citing his work for one side of her argument. Whether I agree with him or not is immaterial, I found this paragraph, directly quoted in Robin Marantz Henig's own words, really disturbing.

"Wilson’s father was Sloan Wilson, author of “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit,” an emblem of mid-’50s suburban anomie that was turned into a film starring Gregory Peck. Sloan Wilson became a celebrity, with young women asking for his autograph, especially after his next novel, “A Summer Place,” became another blockbuster movie. The son grew up wanting to do something to make his famous father proud.

“I knew I couldn’t be a novelist,” said Wilson, who crackled with intensity during a telephone interview, “so I chose something as far as possible from literature — I chose science.” He is disarmingly honest about what motivated him: “I was very ambitious, and I wanted to make a mark.” He chose to study human evolution, he said, in part because he had some of his father’s literary leanings and the field required a novelist’s attention to human motivations, struggles and alliances — as well as a novelist’s flair for narrative."

Maybe I am being unreasonable, but I find it very hard to believe on someones science when their motivation is that they wanted to be famous because their father was. I mean no personal disrespect to the Dr. Wilson in the article, maybe I misunderstand what the author was trying to represent about him. In any case, the issue still stands, does one's motivations for doing science colour one's science?

There are many many reasons why one chooses to do research, a keenly developed sense of curiosity, idealism, wanting to contribute to the world, even lack of other options, which happens oftener than one would like to believe. And of course, motivations change as one's thinking evolves, as one grows up. Idealism becomes less important, the need for a secure job kicks in, pragmatism trumps curiosity in one's choices of projects etc. If fame and success is one's primary imperative though, doesn't that lead one down a road of great pressure and even greater disappointment? Does one pick projects simply because they will get one attention? Does one feel greater temptation to wrongly interpret or over-interpret one's data if the perception of eventual success is the primary driving force?

Allegra Goodman has written a phenomenal book "Intuition", sort of on the subject of what drives scientists to do the things they do and how pressure and success can tempt the most high-minded scientist away from their usual code of research. I am aware that no one really does science mainly for the good of the human race or the purity of thought involved in solely intellectual pursuits (Of course I do, but... :) ) and that idealism rarely has a place in the rat race of research today. However I cannot believe it is good for the scientific establishment as a whole if our only motivation to do science was glory and success, sweet as they may be, in fact I think that would be really dangerous.

What do you think? Am I just over-reacting?

scientiae-carnival