The problem with hardcore Scientists

Yes, being a "radical" scientist is not ideal

I thought to myself: “Daria, do you really want to write such a thing? You could upset people, even unknowingly… but then you want to write this, knowing it could happen, so its not “unknowingly” anymore… is it okay to do?”

Maybe you can see a bit of an overthinking pattern here, maybe even past tendencies of a people pleaser, or whatever other psychological or behavioral term. And yet, if you read this now, I have decided to post it, no matter what. And that is something I am happy about, to have overcome these patterns.

So now off to the reason for this triggering or potentially off-putting title post:

I am a Scientist myself, studied Biology & did my PhD in Plant Physiology. After that, I decided to leave academia, start my own company & become a scientific illustrator. So now I am illustrating science for scientists.

And I can honestly say: it has been a freaking blast! I love my journey so far, I have had such amazing clients & feel so honored to help them out every time! They are passionate, caring and motivated and truly amazing human beings, while being super great scientists at the same time!

So, I do not refer to my clients when I speak about “ The problem with hardcore scientists”, I speak about the observations I made while studying, being in academia, teaching, interacting with such scientists & observing them on social media & in society.

I generally believe that anything extreme and radical is not ideal, mainly because it goes too far into one direction & disregards everything else, it becomes hardcore, unpleasant and narrow-minded.

To me, some of the core traits for scientists are: curiosity and an open mind, ESPECIALLY towards things that we have no idea about. New things, alternative ideas, pathways, approaches.

And yet, there are so many of such “Hardcore Scientists” that do not believe in anything else than hard data and numbers; if they can’t see it, measure it, assess it in some quantitative way, its nonsense, bollocks and should be discarded. Bäm, done, that’s it.

This means: “alternative”healing methods are bollocks, no matter the thousands of years that e.g. TCM has cured and helped people; no matter that an ayurvedic lifestyle has benefitted millions of people; no matter that energetic practices have helped and relieved people; no matter that soul-diseases have been assessed in the east, while called nonsense and WooWoo in the west; no matter that astrology is seen as one of the oldest sciences in the world by so many people…and so on, and so forth…

The one thing that many of such “hardcore scientsists” who despise any of the above mentioned practices & healing methodologies have in common is: they have most likely never tried them, not spoken to an expert in the field, never experienced any of it. They just simply bash those knowledges and that’s that.

How scientific is this approach? Not at all, if you ask me.

How curious is it? Zero.

How much open-mindedness is there? None.