Curious Minds: How a Child Becomes a Scientist

Although the subtitle uses the terms, Child and Scientist, I think the real topic is how a person develops into a successful, creative adult. I found the book fascinating as I looked for patterns to validate how I raised my own children, or how I was raised, or how anyone should mentor younger people. What I learned was that becoming a scientist or any thinking adult is a mixture of luck, genetics, family influence, peer influence, and social setting. There is no recipe, but there may be patterns for our children and ourselves.While this was not a well constructed statistical survey, it was a well conceived set of informative essays from interesting, successful folks. Excellent book, great to discuss. Also, the format of many short essays made it easy to read in pieces and reflect.

This is actually an anthology of articles written by many different scientists about their lives. I had hoped - expected - at least a minimum of analysis. What are the common threads, if any etc.? Does the title reveal the only one? One has to be prepared to draw one's own conclusions.