What draws a person to dedicate themselves to the pursuit of science?
The answer might seem obvious: curiosity, intellectual challenge, or innovations that can be useful for humanity. But in the world’s first large-scale international study of aesthetic experiences in science, including surveys with over 3,500 scientists across India, Italy, the United Kingdom, and the United States, and in-depth interviews with more than 300 of them, we encountered another answer. Again and again, scientists told us they were drawn to science because it is beautiful.
“I always wanted to work on plant groups that I thought were attractive,” an American biologist told us. “The beauty of the interaction between pollinators and flowers—that’s one of the most beautiful things in nature, which is why I study pollination,” said another biologist in the U.K.
The idea that beauty is not trivial but a central driver of inquiry challenges dominant narratives about science as a value-neutral, dispassionate enterprise. It also invites us to revisit a deeper question: what kind of knowledge fosters human flourishing?
The Varieties of Beauty in Science
What exactly is beauty? Many of us tend to presume it’s subjective: “in the eye of the beholder.” Yet research suggests a more nuanced picture.
Neuroscientist Anjan Chatterjee argues that it is more accurate to say that beauty may be in the brain of the beholder, and our brains are more similar than they are different. Chatterjee has developed the “aesthetic triad” model, showing that beauty arises through the interaction of three brain systems: sensory-motor (perceptual pleasure), emotion-valuation (emotional salience), and meaning-knowledge (personal and contextual significance).
In our study, scientists described beauty across all three dimensions—whether sensory delight in natural forms, emotional responses of awe and wonder, or the meaningful pleasure of intellectual synthesis. We find that 75 percent of scientists report encountering beauty in the phenomena they study, from the microscopic to the macroscopic. And discoveries in science are deeply emotional and meaningful. Over 80% of scientists in our survey feel “a sense of childlike joy or delight” in their work at least a few times a year.
Across disciplines, however, what most scientists cherish is not just surface-level aesthetics but what we call the “beauty of understanding”—the joy and satisfaction that we experience when we grasp the hidden order or inner logic of things.
In our survey, over 95% of scientists reported experiencing this beauty of understanding in their work. “To put pieces together into the puzzle and to see it build, and to get a sense of understanding how things are connected, how disparate sorts of things are connected and make sense together—that is just a constant pleasure really, and very fulfilling for us,” said a biologist in the U.S. Another scientist, a U.K. physicist, described it as the feeling of “looking at the face of God, for nonreligious people.”
Beauty, in its various forms, plays a central role in motivating inquiry, sustaining attention, and shaping scientific practice. It also matters vitally for scientists’ well-being.
Beauty and Flourishing
In our research, we find that scientists who encounter beauty more frequently in their work score significantly higher on measures of flourishing. Using the Harvard Flourishing Index, a validated scale measuring human flourishing as a combination of happiness, meaning, relationships, health, and financial stability, we found that beauty, awe, and wonder are positively associated with every dimension of well-being.
Scientists who encounter beauty regularly report greater purpose, stronger social bonds, and better mental health—even during the stress of a global pandemic.
Others described how beauty forges bonds of community. “My field is driven by everyone’s shared love for beautiful things,” said an Indian biologist. “I feel like my tribe is welcoming and warm and wonderful, which is why it’s easy to stay in this science.”
The philosopher Elaine Scarry has argued that beauty “pressures us toward justice” by awakening a desire to protect and preserve what is valuable. Our data supports this claim. As one U.K. biologist told us, “I want to do everything I can… to preserve these ecosystems for the next generations.” An Indian biologist called nature itself “sacred,” adding: “It really should be our job to understand it, protect it, preserve it.”
Beauty fosters not just ethical action but also communal joy. Teaching and mentorship, for example, become shared aesthetic experiences.
When institutions recognize and support this aesthetic dimension, rather than reducing science to metrics, productivity, or utilitarian output, they cultivate not just better research but healthier, more fulfilled people.
Beauty draws us out of ourselves, confronts us with our limits, and provokes longing. This sense of being “wounded” by beauty was evident in our interviews. A physicist described crying when he learned of the detection of gravitational waves: “It is awe-inspiring… that we can now hear the universe, hear the vibrations of space-time rather than just see it!”
These encounters with beauty often provoke existential or spiritual reflection. In fact, over 80% of scientists in our study say their work opens up new mysteries for them, at least a few times a year. This contradicts the claim advanced by sociologist Max Weber over a century ago that science inevitably leads to disenchantment. On the contrary, we find that science can be enchanting: it evokes wonder, mystery, and in many cases, spiritual yearning.
Scientists in our study described three modes of such enchantment: transcendent (linking beauty to God), immanent (finding awe within nature itself), and liminal (experiencing uncertainty about the existence of transcendent entities). “If there is a God,” said a U.S. biologist, “I guess I feel closer to God when I’m out there [in nature].”
Beauty does not necessarily lead to religious belief, but it opens space for wonder, mystery, and a quest for meaning. Science, conversely, is not the enemy of mystery but its companion. It does not close the door to wonder but opens it wider.
Beauty and Truth
“Beauty is the attractive power of reality,” an Italian astronomer told us. “Reality calls us. And the way we are captured is through beauty.”
Beauty draws us toward reality. But what kind of reality are scientists seeking?
Surprisingly perhaps, many of the scientists we interviewed were hesitant to describe science as a quest for “truth.” Instead, they preferred the term “understanding.” They worried that “truth” implied finality, certainty, or dogma—qualities they felt undermined public trust during the COVID-19 pandemic. As one physicist explained: “If we did a better job of saying this is not the truth, but rather, it is our understanding in this moment and this time with this information, then people I think would be more ready to accept that that understanding changes as we get more information.”
This preference aligns with contemporary philosophy of science, where many scholars argue for a “nonfactive” view of understanding. In this view, understanding does not require full truth, but rather a coherent grasp of how things fit together—even through idealized or simplified models.
Might the aesthetic resonance of a theory—its elegance or simplicity—can serve as a guide to truth? Scientists walk a fine line between inspiration and bias. Many prominent scientists have encouraged pursuing a beautiful theory even when supportive data seem lacking. Einstein suggested that general relativity was too beautiful to be wrong. Paul Dirac claimed, “It is more important to have beauty in one’s equations than for them to fit experiment.”
Yet scientists are divided about whether beauty can be a reliable guide to truth. Many scientists in our study are aware of the potential of beauty to serve as a source of bias in science. Beautiful theories in the past turned out not to have been true, and “ugly” ones, once established, ceased to seem ugly.
The scientists we studied thus emphasized the need for humility: to let beauty animate inquiry, but always submit it to empirical discipline. Beauty must be oriented to truth.
Beauty and Goodness
Beauty is also fragile. It can be manipulated, exploited, or weaponized. In our study, many scientists shared concerns that institutional cultures in academia exploit their love of science. They spoke of being overworked, underpaid, and undervalued. “There’s this cult of presenteeism,” one physicist said. “‘I worked 60 hours in the lab last week.’ First, nobody can work 60 productive hours. Second, why brag about that?”
Nearly 70% of the scientists in our survey claimed that science was one of the most meaningful aspects of their lives—more of a calling than just a job. Yet the expectation to follow one’s “calling” or “passion” can be used to justify unfair treatment. “Any profession styled as a calling is secretly saying that the people who do it are less deserving of respect,” the above physicist told us, recounting how her own department wrongly denied her tenure, and told her instead that she should just be happy she did what she loved.
Beauty can also be complicit in harmful outcomes. The scientists who built the atomic bomb spoke of the “sweetness” of the underlying physics. Today, some worry that “beautiful” new technologies, like gene editing, are advancing faster than our ethical frameworks. “We are bordering on eugenics,” one Italian scientist warned us. “It’s contrary to science to stop these things—but why are we doing all these things anyway?”
The lesson here is not to abandon beauty, but to anchor it in ethical reflection. When institutions create space for moral discernment (e.g., through longer-term funding, anti-harassment policies, and reflective dialogue), they can help protect the power of beauty from becoming compromised or co-opted.
The Profound Reasonableness of Beauty
Pope Benedict XVI once warned that modern reason had become too narrow—reduced to calculation and control, excluding questions of meaning and value. He called for a “broadening of reason,” expanding the concept from its instrumental connotations to one that could embrace moral and spiritual insight without rejecting scientific rigor.
Our research affirms this call. It shows that scientific inquiry, far from being a cold enterprise, is suffused with beauty, longing, and wonder. Scientists are not simply technicians but seekers—drawn by enchantment, moved by mystery, and striving toward understanding. Their work is not just about explaining the world, but connecting more deeply with it.
Beauty awakens us to what is real. It inspires perseverance, fosters community, and nurtures our longing for wholeness. And this has consequences beyond science.
In a cultural moment saturated with efficiency, optimization, and control, beauty can seem irrelevant or indulgent. But our study shows that beauty plays a crucial role in sustaining human flourishing. It motivates inquiry, fosters joy, builds community, and deepens our grasp of the world. In business, education, policy, and civic life, we might ask: Where do people encounter beauty in their work? What moves them to awe, delight, or wonder? And how might we design institutions that foster and not stifle these motivations?
