Curiosity has a curious place in the history of science. In the early modern period, curiosity was doubled-edged: it was both a virtue, the spring for a 'love of truth', but also the source of human error and even personal corruption. In the twentieth century, curiosity had become an apparently uncomplicated motivation. Successful scientists, for example Nobel Prize winners in their lectures and biographies, frequently attributed their first steps into science to a fundamental curiosity, an irrepressible desire to ask the question 'why?'. The aside made by Albert Einstein in private correspondence in 1952-'I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious'-has now become a meme. Yet in the twentieth century, science was shaped by many forces, and the practical utility of science in the real, messy problematic worlds of its formation seem far removed from the seeming innocence of curiosity-driven research. In my lecture and this paper, I ask why scientists say they ask 'why?', and trace the curious history of the idea of curiosity-driven science. In particular, I distinguish between a long and short history of curiosity in science, with the latter associated with the term 'curiosity-driven science' and the UK administration of Margaret Thatcher.

中文翻译：

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2016年威尔金斯-伯纳尔-梅达瓦尔演讲好奇心驱动的研究的奇妙历史。

好奇心在科学史上具有奇特的地位。在近代早期，好奇心倍增：这既是美德，是“热爱真相”的源泉，也是人为错误甚至人身腐败的根源。在二十世纪，好奇心已经变得很简单。成功的科学家，例如在演讲和传记中获得诺贝尔奖的科学家，经常将其进入科学的第一步归因于基本的好奇心，这是人们问“为什么？”的不可抑制的愿望。阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦（Albert Einstein）于1952年在私人信件中所作的旁注-“我没有特殊才能。我只是热情地好奇-现在已经成为模因。然而在20世纪，科学是由许多力量塑造而成的，科学在现实中的实际用途是 它的形成是一个混乱而有问题的世界，与好奇心驱动的研究似乎天真无邪。在我的演讲和本文中，我问为什么科学家说他们问“为什么？”，并追寻好奇心驱动的科学思想的好奇历史。我特别要区分科学的悠久历史和短暂历史，后者与“好奇心驱动的科学”一词和英国玛格丽特·撒切尔政府相关。