NCSE's executive director Eugenie C. Scott was among a group of "key thinkers in science, technology, and medicine" surveyed by the on-line periodical Spiked in collaboration with the research-based pharmaceutical company Pfizer. They were asked the simple question: "What inspired you to take up science?" "I don't know," Scott begins her reply, "maybe packs of feral dogs." A practical interest in canine territorial behavior, coupled with a chance exposure to a college-level anthropology text, yielded a persisting fascination with evolution on her part, even though the subject was avoided in her high school biology class. "I had to wait until I got to college to study evolution," Scott concludes, "and I've been learning about it ever since."
November 3, 2006