Sir
Raymond Pierotti's Correspondence expressing his opinion (Nature 419, 667; 200210.1038/419667a) that academic scandals are less well known than business ones reminded me of Michael Faraday's description of his “desire to escape from trade, which I thought vicious and selfish, and to enter the service of Science, which I imagined made its pursuers amiable and liberal”.
Faraday, a bookseller's apprentice, had written to Sir Humphry Davy at the Royal Institution of Great Britain in pursuit of a career move. Davy advised him that experience would correct his opinion of the “superior moral feelings of philosophic men” (see The Philosopher's Tree, ed. P. Day, 2–3; IoP, Bristol, 1999).
Business and science have long been interdependent. Faraday's “philosophic” researches, for example, paved the way for vast technologically based industries and many other scientific, technological and business developments.
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Day, G. Liberal world of science. Nature 420, 121 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/420121c
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/420121c