Who gets the prize
In science, most people are driven by competition. The reason they spend 12+ hours in their offices/labs is to improve their reputation within the community. They want to be the best at answering questions. They want to be the ones who the community unanimously acknowledges as the best. Healthy, caveman-derived social status improvement loop. I want to emphasize that these people do it for their ego ultimately and not for the adancement of sciences. When an expert chose the field that he became an expert in, he/she chose one that seemed morally/ethically superior. But once in the field, the ego takes over and an anxious race to the intellectual peak is begun. Full of challenges, fueled by the adrenalin boost of competitive engagement, the race to the top is on. ___but ever so silenty, the branch of human knowledge that the researcher is advancing, gets richer. The field itself is feeding on the human brainpower. As a meme occupying the minds of many able scientists, not caring