Quotes by Stephen J. Field

“I am somehow less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.””

“Within a few months Mitch Bush, head veterinarian at the National Zoo, and David Wildt, a young reproductive physiologist working as a postdoctoral fellow in my laboratory at the National Cancer Institute, were on a plane bound for South Africa. Bush is a towering, bearded, giant of a man with a strong interest and acumen in exotic animal veterinary medicine, particularly the rapidly improving field of anesthetic pharmacology. Wildt is a slight and modest Midwestern farm boy, schooled in the reproductive physiology of barnyard animals. His boyish charm and polite shy demeanor mask a piercing curiosity and deep knowledge of all things reproductive. Bush and Wildt's expedition to the DeWildt cheetah breeding center outside Pretoria would ultimately change the way the conservation community viewed cheetahs forever.””

“(From an interview with Daniel Kahneman)Q. Is it possible that one barrier for women trying to work in male-dominated fields is that such an environment demands extra mental effort on behalf of the women? A. Being self-conscious takes up mental capacity and is certainly not good for performance. Furthermore, the more self-conscious you are, the more likely you are to interpret (and sometimes misinterpret) the attitudes of others as gender-based, which is bound to make things worse. However, there is hope: self-consciousness is likely to diminish when you are in a stable environment, interacting with people you know well. The trend appears to be favorable: improving attitudes of men, rising representation of women in many male-dominated occupations, so the future is likely to be better than the past.””

“Field biologists studying large and charismatic animals wanted to know if their own species had genetic problems. I listened carefully to stories of koalas in Australia, giant pandas in China, black-footed ferrets in the Midwest, elephants, rhinos, and leopards in Africa, and orangutans in Asia--all threatened or endangered species attended by packs of worried field biologists. If cheetahs paid a price for their brush with extinction, did these species suffer the same?””