Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Blog 11

When reading chapters five through eight of the feeling for the organism, I found McClintock’s attitude very interesting.  McClintock obviously shows emotion regarding her work.  She is very passionate about finding the right answers to the questions she is asking. McClintock was contacted by George Beadle to visit his lab at Stanford.  After McClintock agreed to visit Stanford, she helped research on Neurospora.  Beadle was stuck so McClintock attempted to get the small chromosomes, however she kept getting it wrong.  She said that she went for a walk to take a break and sat under a group of trees.  While she was there McClintock shed some tears, and back to the lab.  This obviously shows a sign of passion for her work.  Any scientist that get upset enough over their work that they show their emotions that way are passionate about their work.  Passion is one of the key character traits to being a successful scientist, and I believe this is one reason that McClintock was so successful.
            McClintock’s struggle with funding, job placement and fear of being locked into a position is very relatable compared to many of the other scientists talked about in class.  She is from a different time period than scientists like Darwin, who didn’t necessarily worry about money.  I would like to see, given a secure economic place, and job placement, if McClintock’s findings would have been even more numerous than they already are.

Her attention to detail also stood out to me.  McClintock refused to delegate her more mundane work to assistants because she did not want any observation to be missed.  I believe this detail oriented mindset is an essential trait of a good scientist.

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