This is a story about inventors that Dr. Ward's daughter, Katee wrote. Dr. Ward wanted to share this because his daughter wrote it and it is informative about inventors. The story is written below to read.

To Invent or Not To Invent
By: Katee Ward
When somebody in today’s society walks into any store, the shelves are filled
with many different gadgets and gismos. There is everything from a self-heating coffee
cup to a razor that cleans itself. The American population spends more money on stuff
that they will never use than any other country. Today people think that it is important to
have all of that extra shinny, expensive junk. What they fail to think about is where all of
their high-tech belongings come from. Their precious gadgets don’t just fall out of the
sky, although that could be cheaper in more ways than one. What they should be
thinking of when they pull that new Nintendo Wii off the shelf, is who came up with this
idea and how would I treat them if I ever met them?

Inventors in America are never given the credit or the respect that they deserve.
Today’s society is too wrapped up in the glitz and glam of their own lives to consider
anything else. People don’t understand that all of their everyday toys first started as an
idea that had to go through an enormous process just to end up in their lives. Since the
beginning of humankind there have been people coming up with new ideas that
eventually go on to help better society. The only problem is that not every one of those
people fit into the “norm” of society although their ideas do. (Norm: the established
pattern or form of a society)

Society also has a way of turning away from people who are “unusual.” If
somebody looks or thinks differently then the expected norms, then they are considered
to be a weirdo who could never be as smart as the average person. Inventors get a bad
reputation of being “eccentric” because they go against society’s norms. Einstein is a
good example of that. His beliefs about the nature of good theories and the relationship
between experiment and theory were different then everybody else’s at that time, so he
wasn’t accepted at first. Bill Gates is another great example of how society doesn’t like
anything that will go against the norm. Bill Gates was seen as a nerd who wouldn’t go
far. However thanks to his invention of an easy accessible operating system for
computers he is now the richest man in the world.

I have seen first hand how society treats somebody who looks and thinks
differently. My father is a full time inventor who doesn’t even began to fit into the
“norm” of society. Physically he has long hair and a long beard. Intellectually he is so
smart that he can’t keep up with what he says. A lot of people cannot understand him.
Prominent, intelligent people who have met him have gone so far as to say that he is the
next Nicola Tesla. Then society steps in. I have heard my dad called everything from
“The Freak” to “The Mad Scientist.” People cannot accept him for his inventions alone.
They are set on what my dad looks like instead of what he is capable of doing. Just
because my dad looks different doesn’t mean that he should be treated like he is. I
believe that it is a part of popular culture to denigrate people down according to their looks.

Teenagers in America aren’t focused on what career choice will really help
society. Instead they want to find the job that will make them the most money. Those
teenagers have everything needed to become a successful inventor, but when asked what
their dream job would be, inventing was on the bottom of the list. (The 2003 Lemelson-
MIT Invention Index). Forty-two percent of teenage boys said they would want to
become a famous athlete while only nineteen percent wanted to become a famous
inventor. Thirty-two percent of teenage girls said they wanted to become a famous
actress while only ten percent said they wanted to be a famous inventor. (Survey done by
The 2003 Lemelson-MIT Invention Index). Today’s society has pushed athletics and
stardom so much that they are what teenagers see as dream jobs. Athletes and actresses
are usually exceptionally good looking people, and the importance of having good looks
has been instilled in the teens of today. A teenager grows up seeing beautiful people on
television, in magazines, or on the internet. Boys see the athletes as being strong and
talented, while girls see the actresses as being graceful and elegant. Who wouldn’t want
to be the next Shaquille O’Neal or the next Hilary Duff? The famous inventors in history
have not been that beautiful. Nobody looks at a picture of Einstein and says, “I want to
look like him when I grow up.” I believe that our cultures over-valuation of looks are
pushing teenagers farther away from ever wanting to become an inventor.

Inventors are shot down everyday because they are not valued in our society.
They could be finding a cure for cancer or coming up with a way to use less gasoline in a
car, but we as a society don’t care about those things. We just care about who is thinner
or who has a tighter six-pack. We forget that we watch all of these exceptionally goodlooking
people on our brand new, extra shiny, big screen television, which we wouldn’t
have if the famous inventor of Idaho, Philo Farnsworth, didn’t have an idea way back
when. So the next time society criticizes an inventor about they way they look or think,
they should consider what the person is capable of doing first. If society doesn’t stop,
inventors will just give up and we will no longer be able to upgrade all of our extra
shinny, expensive junk.

Works Cited
Flemings, Merton. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 20 March 2007.
<web.mit.edu/invent/sitemap.html>.
Ament, Phil. “Albert Einstein.” Vaunt Design Group. 9 October 2006.
<http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventors/einstein.htm>.
Farnsworth, Elma. Distant Vision: Romance and Discovery on the Invisible Frontier. ed.
Pemberly, Kent. August 1990