Education: What's a Scientist?

Since they live in a town famed for science, the students of Tennessee's Oak Ridge High School might have been expected to have some pretty flattering things to say about scientists. But when Science Teacher J. R. Blair asked his 14 to 16-year-old pupils to write down their notions of what a scientist is and does, he got some disconcerting answers.

Scientists, it seems, are people who "work with science and drink coffee." They invent new "thoiries," or work on such things as the "salt vacine." They are "shabby dressed," often indulge in utter nonsense ("I don't see any reason for putting...

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