• Question: why are scientist smart?

    Asked by asha to David, James, Mike, Suze, Will on 21 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Suze Kundu

      Suze Kundu answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I’m not sure that we all are… I can understand a bit of chemistry, and that’s only because someone has taught me about it, but sometimes I do the silliest things! Maybe being good at one thing means that there’s not enough room in your brain for other things. In my case, common sense seems to sometimes be lacking!

      Basically, it’s all about learning. From the day we’re born we are always learning new things, and if someone can teach you something that you don’t know in a way that you can understand, you keep that knowledge in your brain, and can then use it when you come acrossa problem that you might be able to solve with that knowledge.

      So we’re not so smart. We’re just like little fact sponges. Anyone and everyone can be a fact sponge if they work hard at it!

    • Photo: Mike Dodd

      Mike Dodd answered on 16 Jun 2011:

      I agree with Suze, you don’t have to be smart to be a scientist, being keen and learning a topic really well, is what is important 🙂

    • Photo: James Marrow

      James Marrow answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      You don’t need to be smart to work in science. In fact, you get further if you can be aware of all that you don’t know! 🙂
      However, you do need to learn things, and that takes some hard work. If you like science, then it’s not such a hard thing to have to do.

    • Photo: William Eborall

      William Eborall answered on 21 Jun 2011:

      Scientists know lots of things about their specific part of science, but as the others say – that doesn’t mean you know much else. I think being smart is less to do with knowing things and more to do with being able to understand things when you’re told them, or being able to make links between things you’re told about.

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