Leonardo Boiko’s Diary

If I looked at her closely, it was not with the eye and feelings of somenone looking at a specimen through a microscope, but more in the spirit in which I looked every day that summer at the snow-covered Colorado mountains across the valley — a mixture of interest, pleasure, excitement, awe, and wonder. (Gnys at Wrk, Glenda Bissex)

What’s wrong with this paragraph is that, contrary to popular belief, the people who look at specimens with microscopes do not do so with cold, aloof disinterest. Scientists are among the most passionate people I’ve ever seen (the effort-to-benefit ratio is much worse for science than, say, law or medical school, so the only people who get into science are those with deep feelings about it). The biologist or chemist looking through a microscope is every bit as interested, pleased, excited, awed and amazed as Glenda is with the Colorado mountains.