Scientific communication, competition, and collaboration

The late molecular biologist Gunther Stent once asked:‘If you were given all the sources you want to pursue your scientiic interest,but not allowed to talk to any other scientist,would you still do science?’he answer from many of us is probably no.Science is a community afair,and much of the joy in doing science comes from communicating with other scientists,who appreciate your work and contribute to it in various ways.Communication oten leads to collaboration that eventually results in scientiic accomplishment not atainable by working alone.Yet,intense competition in many areas has a negative impact on scientiic communication,and overemphasis by our institutions on