Nice link. He is right, science is driven by the need to obtain further grants, to its detriment. We are nowhere near the stage where we are 'done' with natural history and can be theory-driven. A long time ago (in a galaxy far, far away...) I met a very inspiring Israeli zoologist called Amotz Zahavi from Tel Aviv university. He had done some lovely work on the behaviour of Arabian Babblers. He told me that he sent new doctoral students out into the desert for the first 6 months or so just to observe, before they formulated any research questions and began in earnest. He felt it was important to get a feel for the normal behaviour of the animal they chose to study first, rather than through the eyes of theory.
It is different here. At the very first interview it really pays to have some interesting questions in mind, a potential research program, in the terminology of Imre Lakatos. It is a shame, we miss a lot.
A lot of people think the most important, most exciting, phrase in science is 'Eureka!', but it isn't. The most exciting phrase is, 'That's funny...'
