• Question: What qualities do you think make a good scientist?

    Asked by njade to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      Scientific curiosity is definitely a must. Don’t take anything at face value, always keep asking why? How? When? Where? What? Nobody ever made it in science by just accepting things as fact. So please, keep firing questions at us, your teachers, your parents. If our answers are’t good enough rephrase it and keep asking. Alternatively you have so many resources at your fingertips on the internet or in books to find an answer that satisfies your curiosity.

    • Photo: Susana Teixeira

      Susana Teixeira answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Patience, curiosity and skepticism. A pinch of stubbornness does not hurt, neither does self discipline!

    • Photo: Ed Lowe

      Ed Lowe answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      A combination of imagination and rigour. You have to have the imagination to think up the questions that need answering, but also the eye for details and self discipline to distrust and test to the point of destruction your own observations until you and everyone else are convinced that they are the only way to explain all the evidence.

    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 19 Jun 2013:

      Curiosity – you’ve got to NEED to know what is going on with whatever you are studying.
      Dedication – you’ve got to stick at it wand work hard (sometimes)
      Creativity – to be really successful you’ve got to think of other experiments and other possibilities that no-one else has ever come up with.

      They would be my top three

    • Photo: Benjamin Hall

      Benjamin Hall answered on 20 Jun 2013:

      Integrity – Do not make things up. Do not fabricate anything. You live and die by your reputation in science.

      Creativity – You won’t get far if you can’t think up the experiments to test your ideas. Or if you don’t have any good ideas!

      Dedication – Science can be frustrating. Sometimes you just have to keep plugging away at things.

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