Could it have been me?

"Scientists are people of very dissimilar temperaments doing different things in very different ways. Among scientists are collectors, classifiers and compulsive tidiers-up; many are detectives by temperament and many are explorers; some are artists and others artisans. There are poet-scientists and philosopher-scientists and even a few mystics. What sort of mind or temperament can all these people be supposed to have in common? Obligative scientists must be very rare, and most people who are in fact scientists could easily have been something else instead."
- Peter Medawar, The Art of the Soluble

Sounds like it would make an AWESOME book. It is, however, out-of-print. :( Okay, it will have to wait for now.

I am reading "Advice to a Young Scientist" by P. B. Medawar. I feel so honoured and cherished that he considers a social scientist, also a scientist, for "human beings are among the most prominent fauna" of the natural world, of which, Medawar explains, "it was our purpose to seek an understanding" (p. 2). He also said this about science: "The important thing is the inclination to get at the truth of matters as far as he is able and to take the steps that will make it reasonably likely he will do so (p. 3)."

"Any passage in this book that a reader may think especially apt and illuminating is that which was written for him or her; that which is well understood already will not be thought interesting and will pass by unnoticed. (p. xiv)"

I love the way he writes. It's beautiful.

Medawar, Peter. 1979. Advice to a Young Scientist. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers.