• Question: what do you believe the most important quality for a scientist is and why?

    Asked by 08mhook to Ailsa, Evan, James, Kath, Ryan on 20 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Ryan Ladd

      Ryan Ladd answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      It’s probably a combination of two qualities – creativity and the ability to be analytical. It’s important to be creative so that you can think of new ways to do things and solve problems but, for science, it’s very important to analyse your experiments carefully so that they’re useful to other scientists too.

    • Photo: Ailsa Powell

      Ailsa Powell answered on 17 Jun 2011:

      I would add to Ryan two qualities (which are definitely required qualities) that perseverance is a very important.

      Experiments often go wrong quite a few times before they work, or just never produce the result you were after and your idea was wrong. You need to be able to take the set backs and think of new ideas and experiments. Sometimes it can take years to get the answer to the big question in your research and you need a lot of perseverance to make it!

    • Photo: Evan Keane

      Evan Keane answered on 20 Jun 2011:

      Curiosity!

Comments