Glassman looks up to Buffett and Gates: "They are going to make a much greater contribution by having made money and giving it away than most, almost all, scientists."

Well, no. If those underpaid scientists had not spent all that ill-compensated time peering into microscopes and nosing around African swamps and setting up clinics and creating the medicines that will help mitigate human suffering, then the fortunes of American billionaires would have little to purchase. Of course, some scientists work their entire lives on projects that go nowhere, but by pursuing an unpromising line of inquiry, they have allowed others to follow other, more fruitful paths.