Advice for Young Scientists—and Curious People in General

Advice for Young Scientists—and Curious People in General

The Nobel Prize-winning biologist Peter Medawar (1915-1987) is best known for work that made the first organ transplants and skin grafts possible. In 1979, he published Advice to a Young Scientist, a book brimming with practical advice and philosophical guidance for anyone “engaged in exploratory activities.”

Application, diligence, a sense of purpose

If you want to make progress in any area, you need to be willing to give up your best ideas from time to time

How to make important discoveries

Look for important problems, meaning ones with answers that matter to humankind.

The first rule is never to fool yourself

The intensity of the conviction that a hypothesis is true has no bearing on whether it is true or not

Getting Started

The best way to learn what we need to know is by getting started, then picking up new knowledge as it proves itself necessary.

The best creative environment

Creativity rises from tranquility, not from disarray

The secrets to effective collaboration

Scientific collaboration is about researchers creating the right environment to develop and expand upon each other’s ideas

How to handle moral dilemmas

If we think an enterprise might lead somewhere damaging, we shouldn’t start on it in the first place

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