After earning a PhD in molecular biology I worked as an industrial research scientist for over 30 years. Working as a scientist is a rare career choice. Researcher scientists account for about half of a tenth of a percent of the US workforce. Most people do not have scientist friends or neighbors and have a poor understanding of what scientists do and what our lives are like. Unlike doctors and lawyers, scientists are seldom represented in books or movies. And, on the rare occasions when scientists are depicted in books or movies, what is represented is not at all like my life or the lives of my colleagues. Readers are not going to get much insight into what my life is like from reading about Victor Frankenstein, the scientist in Mary Shelly’s famous novel. So, what is a scientist’s life like? The books I write expose surprising realities of the lives of scientists: that great luck is required in almost every case to discover anything of significant value and, even once you discover something that is new, true and possibly important, the real work begins in trying to convince your colleagues that what you have discovered is correct.
