> But it is easy to see that neither of these can be the principal motive of most scientists. As for "curiosity," that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists

> But it is easy to see that neither of these can be the principal motive of most scientists. As for "curiosity," that notion is simply absurd. Most scientists work on highly specialized problems that are not the object of any normal curiosity. For example, is an astronomer, a mathematician or an entomologist curious about the properties of isopropyltrimethylmethane? Of course not. Only a chemist is curious about such a thing, and he is curious about it only because chemistry is his surrogate activity. Is the chemist curious about the appropriate classification of a new species of beetle? No. That question is of interest only to the entomologist, and he is interested in it only because entomology is his surrogate activity. If the chemist and the entomologist had to exert themselves seriously to obtain the physical necessities, and if that effort exercised their abilities in an interesting way but in some nonscientific pursuit, then they wouldn't give a damn about isopropyltrimethylmethane or the classification of beetles. What rubbish. One need only look at Euclid's Elements to see that a small portion of humanity has always been interested in completely irrelevant but highly specialized formal knowledge manipulation. That a single book about math has survived for longer than the Bible and been translated to a few dozen languages, across a dozen civilizations tells you all you need to know about the universality of curiosity. Yes, if you're starving you won't be spending your time on curiosity, but you also won't be doing much of anything but looking for food. You might as well say that sex is a surrogate activity that we'd give up if we found something better to do.