Scientific Attitudes of A Scientist

What exactly makes a good scientist? According to the Mertonian sociology of science, the primary criterion for a scientist’s quality derives from the final objective of science-extending certified knowledge.

            There are a lot of scientific attitudes that a scientist must possess. In this article, I summarized them into 10 of these scientific attitudes that make a good scientist.

1.    A scientist must be dedicated to his field of work. He works not only for his knowledge sake but also for the sake of everyone to learn new things or discoveries made by the scientist. He/she must be impartial, observant and diligent in his researches and experiments.

2.    A scientist must have a natural curiosity about the world. He/she must have the enthusiasm about the world, how it came to be, and its essence.

3.    A scientist must have an insatiable appetite to learn. He/she is not forced to learn, instead a scientist learns from the heart and the more he learns the more he desires for it.

4.    A scientist has an ability to see things from many different perspectives. This is important since a scientist must not only look on one side of a situation, for instance, but he analyzes it and thinks critically of many different reasons behind a situation. He/she then assess what’s best for it and act on it.

5.    A scientist has an exceptional imagination. Whenever possible, a scientist must combine his logic and creative imagination to arrive to great results in researches or experiments. This will balance his/her personality between art and science.

6.    A scientist must be logical. He/she must be able to reason out why he came out with his/her conclusions. He/she have organized thoughts that will easily be understood by many who listen to him/her.

7.    A scientist has intuition. As much as possible, a scientist must have this ability to understand something immediately, without the need for conscious reasoning. It’s not to say that a scientist needs not to think anymore. There’s just a fine line between reasoning and common sense.

8.    A scientist is honest. He/she does not cheat his/her researches/experiments to gain the fame for his work. This kind of attitude is that of a fake scientist and must be avoided. Even if he/she repeats an experiment 500 times, he will continue doing so until he arrive at an answer.

9.    A scientist has solid skills in math. This is basic for all scientists. All of a scientist’s works require data interpretation through statistics or some other computations, which requires superior knowledge in math. Math is like a pre-requisite to becoming a scientist.

10. A scientist respects religion. A scientist does not think that he has dominion over all just because he is a genius and knows a lot of things. He must not proclaim he is greater than God for his knowledge is still incomparable to that of the all-knowing omnipotent Divine God. He/she humbles him/herself before Him and knows that he is just a steward of life.