When people say "scientist", they mean "technician". A technician is a highly trained person whose job is to apply known techniques and principles. He deals with the known. A scientist is a person who seeks to know the true nature of physical reality. He deals with the unknown.
In short, scientists discover and technicians apply. However, it is not longer evident whether scientists really discover new things or whether they create them. Many people believe that "discovery" is actually an act of creation. If this is so, then the distinction between scientists, poets, painters and writers is not clear. In fact, it is possible that scientsts, poets, painters and writers are all members of the same family of people whose gift it is by nature to take those things which we call commonplace and to re-present them in such ways that our self-imposed limitations are expanded. Those people in whom this gift is especially pronounced, we call geniuses.
-- Gary Zukav
The fact is that most "scientists" are technicians. They are not interested in the essentially new. Their field of vision is relatively narrow; their energies are directed toward applying what is already known. Because their noses are often buried in the bark of a particular tree, it is difficult to speak to them meaningfully of forests.
-- Gary Zukav
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