Who is an actual scientist?
“To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me.” – Isaac Newton
This is a normal phenomenon precisely because Newton explored and felt the world, so he considered himself a child. His attitude was that if he found a few mere pebbles, he would consider himself lucky, not letting his pride get the better of him, that it was given to him.
Today, the methods of inner contemplation that Newton used to investigate the world have been replaced with technical and technological methods. That is why there are no more “Newtons.” The last “Newton” was, I would say, Lev Landau. There was no one like that after him.
A scientist is one who wants to understand the meaning of the existence of our world. The field of science one works in does not matter, whether it is biology, technology, physics or whatnot, but one who seeks to understand the nature of the existence of our world is a true scientist.
The time of the “Newton” kinds of scientists has ended. No scientists could rise as much as they were supposed to by nature, because genuine science is in conflict with government interests. Scientists today participate in various seminars and academies that they have organized for them. Other than that, they are kept silent and work to fulfill the demands to make various technologies and weapons.
If we took Newton from his era and brought him here—as he is, without anyone else’s influence—I think that he would not respond positively to instructions to make nuclear and hydrogen bombs, and other weapons. Each scientist, in accordance with the depth of their attainment, simultaneously feels the height of science and cannot connect it with those egoistic, mercantile demands that the government offers.