Half of the Nobel Prize winners, typically

Usage examples of scientists.

While a few scientists are still perceived as outsiders, courageously criticizing the ills of society and providing early warnings of potential technological catastrophes, many are seen as compliant opportunists, or as the willing source of corporate profits and weapons of mass destruction - never mind the long-term consequences.

I was on my way to a conference of scientists and TV broadcasters devoted to the seemingly hopeless prospect of improving the presentation of science on commercial television.

During the Cold War, scientists in the United States, the Soviet Union, China and other nations were willing to expose their own fellow citizens to radiation - in most cases without their knowledge - to prepare for nuclear war.

Roughly half the scientists on Earth work at least part-time for the military.

Under the Tsars, religious superstition was encouraged, but scientific and sceptical thinking - except by a few tame scientists - was ruthlessly expunged.

Critical thinking -except by scientists in hermetically sealed compartments of knowledge - was recognized as dangerous, was not taught in the schools, and was punished where expressed.

But in parallel to the many scientists who seem reluctant to debate or even publicly discuss pseudo-science, many proponents of mainstream religions are reluctant to take on extreme conservatives and fundamentalists.

When the pseudoscientific hypothesis fails to catch fire with scientists, conspiracies to suppress it are deduced.

Many, perhaps most, science textbooks for budding scientists tread lightly here.

If you examine science in its everyday aspect, of course you find that scientists run the gamut of human emotion, personality and character.

There is much warm and inspired encouragement of apprentice scientists by their mentors.

For anyone who has witnessed a portentous scientific finding in the making - the July 1994 impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter comes to mind - it will be clear that scientists tend to be effervescent and uncontainable.

Russian spacecraft and imaginary space scientists, which of course makes it marginally harder for a sceptic to check the story out.

Bower and Chorley were delighted - especially when scientists and others began to announce their considered judgement that no merely human intelligence could be responsible.

Air Force officers and civilian scientists thinking back about it in later years might very well conclude that the government had engineered a UFO cover-up.