Re: CV and mad panic behaviour
Reply #7377 –
I think they can come across like that, but it's mostly a defence mechanism, particularly if they are late career scientists and engineers.
Maybe those who seem to be a touch on a spectrum, which is often more common than you might think, can have a very myopic approach being heavily focussed on one specific area, and that can leave others thinking they are dismissive or arrogant. It's more common than you might suspect, little eccentricities that annoy everyday folk.
For example, among those I have worked with there is a surprisingly high level of dyslexia, even in those who can freely speak multiple languages.
The ones who are great orators are truly the exception, but the general public seems to expect that a brilliant scientific mind assumes a brilliant communicator, and that is far from the case!
On the issue of genuine arrogance, I find that it's very rare a good scientist is arrogant, in most cases the very good scientists doubt and question everything even their own work, which is actually the default scientific process. Make an assertion and then test it, a good scientist is always trying to prove an assertion is false. It's the bad ones that mask other deficiencies and ignore scientific process that are often caught using arrogance as a deflection mechanism.