文档介绍：Preface
Science is hard work. It is also an endeavor that is inherently
cautious and measured. All too often what seems to be a clear
answer to a problem in one context surfaces as a poor inter-
pretation in another. Scientists know this and because of this
fact they usually try to stay close to their data when dis-
cussing their results in scholarly publications. That is how it
should be. .
At the same time, the stuff that drives scientists into their
laboratories instead of onto the golf links is the passion to
answer questions, hopefully important questions, about the
nature of nature. Getting a fix on important questions and
how to think about them from an experimental p&intof view
is what scientists talk about, sometimes endlessly. It is those
conversations that thrill and motivate. And yet, most of these
exchanges are lost rather than being captured for the
student.
One evening several years ago we were ending one of our
dinner parties that my wife and I host when a es
to town. We love these evenings, as they represent a time
when we can pursue a topic with our guests with all gloves
off. After one such occasion a friend remarked that it was
a pity not to have the conversations somehow available for
others. It had been a particularly lively evening. It was then
I thought of doing interviews with famous scientists for the
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.
Over the past few years I have carried out a number of
interviews on topics that range from molecular mechanisms
to philosophical issues. Each interview has been managed on
e-mail, the new glue that binds us all. Overall they take about
10 days plete, after which the participant and I review
the product and make small adjustments. Most of it, how-
ever, is not changed a whit, and out of es a spontane-
ity and zip from the interviewees that makes for good
reading and gives great insight into the way they think.
The Journal will continue t