jtotheizzoe:

E.O. Wilson’s Advice to Young Scientists

This is advice to come back to again and again. 

On charting new courses of inquiry, and finding inspiration in research and in learning, he tells us to march to our own drummer, and to not fall in with the army of the masses: 

“Observe from a distance, but do not join the fray. Make a fray of your own.”

And on our need to seed, stoke and feed our curiosity with as many varied influences and disciplines as we can:

“In time, all of science will come to be a continuum of description, an explanation of networks, of principles and laws. That’s why you need not just be training in one specialty, but also acquire breadth in other fields, related to and even distant from your own initial choice.

Keep your eyes lifted and your head turning. The search for knowledge is in our genes.”

Finally, bad at math? You’ll be happy to know that he says not to worry too much. You’ve got plenty of time. And you can always add a mathematician as a collaborator.

(via Brain Pickings)