Aptitude for science and Risk taking behaviour : linked traits ??

Science is questioning the nature and ways of nature with an intent to understand the ways by which the nature work. Scientific process thus starts with questioning, lives by hypothesising and validation of the hypothesis by experimentation and ends with an understanding.

Understanding the nature contributes to our knowledge as a species and it helps our cultural and social progress but it is often very important to get the tools and resources to enhance our chances of survival in the grand laboratory of nature where species come and disappear. But if one looks closely at the scientific process one can easily make out that science is not everyone's cup of tea. Although all of us are naturally born curious and that is a very fundamental trait of highly advanced human intellect. And I have seen some very interesting questions being asked by some relatively less trained and less educated folks in science symposiums and seminars and even in general life. So questioning is easy and people can come up with interesting questions.

But mere questioning does not get you the answers that are needed to be able to really understand something or to be able to do something about it. It requires a special kind of personality trait that can drive you to the difficult and risky paths in quest of an answer.

This is the same risk taking attitude that is found in people who do gambling, take narcotic drugs for sake of thrill, have unprotected sex with multiple partners at the drop of a hat and drive high speed cars. These are people who would go scuba diving or ski-jumping with an air of recklessness in their overall general behaviour.

High risk behaviours also do have a high reward, high risk behaviour is rewarded by a sense of accomplishment and a euphoria lasting longer than average and a sculpted self esteem that keeps on becoming more "Greek-God" like after each such act of high risk. Infact, our brains have been wired that way.

High risk behaviour and its sporadic presence in some individuals in population may have been a contrivance for human survival. Infact if you look at human history it is replete with such acts of high risk behaviour by some well remembered individuals. Lets us come back to what is connection between scientific aptitude and risk taking attitude. So what immediately comes to my mind is the picture of Louis Pasteur pipetting saliva from the mouth of a rabid dog with one end of glass capillary in his mouth and other end near salivary gland of the 'rabid' dog and all this to find a cure for Rabies, well aware of the fact that even a tiny droplet of the saliva can infect him and kill him of rabies which had no cure. 

Consider the infamous experiment done by Benjamin Franklin, infamous because many others who tried doing it, died, unlike Benjamin himself, who luckily survived. He flew a kite by a silk string in midst of a storm to demonstrate that lightning is a form of static electricity.

Such formidable experiments are driven by a high risk behaviour and history of science is replete with such people who took such risks, another reminiscence is very famous experiment by Russian scientist Metchnikoff during cholera outbreak in France in 1892 to understand the mystery behind the pathology associated with Cholera, he drank a glass full of cholera vibrio (the pathogen responsible for causing cholera).

Risk taking behaviour is not always reflected in capability to do such dangerous experiments, but also in one's willingness to dedicate one's energy and time in discovering the truth and not just securing a bright track record and sheen in high impact papers.

I remember a famous scientist once said that "science can't be done in confines of comfortable air conditioned laboratories". Sometimes I really feel that unless one does not step out of his/her comfort zone, the scientific discovery is highly unlikely.