American Scientist

It is a curious thing to be called to a life of science. To the uninitiated, the disciplined practices of researchers may seem mysterious and even odd, like those of an unfamiliar, cloistered, religious sect. Much lab work is done silently; picture hushed chemists at the bench. Field observations are often done in solitude; think of Jane Goodall watching chimps in the Gombe. The deliberate motions of data collection may appear ritualistic; consider limnologists drawing daily water samples from a vernal pond. A detached observer might watch these researchers for weeks and get no more than a superficial sense of what they are doing, let alone an appreciation of why. What compels their strange devotion? What does it mean to feel the call of science?