Blog 14

                Chapter five of Dr. Pennock’s book goes into detail about how scientists develop virtues, and therefore character, based on forming habits, how these habits produce excellence in the scientific field and shape our desires and actions. These habits are things that take time to develop and follow through consistently on since humans are not virtuous by birth, though habits do enable us to put our instincts such as curiosity into action. Habits just like any virtue should be balanced in order for them to not become a vice and takes discipline to accomplish this. The example that Dr. Pennock used in the chapter was how habits of being meticulous can turn into a vice of being obsessive-compulsive. He does explain that scientists need to be a little more on the extreme side of meticulous in order to perform well, but he does not say that scientists should become compulsive. At that point, the scientist will be focused on say washing their hands so much that they never perform their research. An example of someone who allowed their meticulous habit of caring for the environment for their research go too far was Barbra McClintock. Though it was good for her to pay attention to the seasons and take extreme care of everything around her in order to make the discoveries that she did, she became obsessed with not hurting the environment that she would not step on grass. People entering the science field and trying to gain meticulous habits should keep this example as a reminder to not become too extreme.

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