Two Novels About Scientists

They Shall Have Stars by James Blish is a futuristic sf novel about scientists. Perish By The Sword by Poul Anderson is a contemporary detective novel about scientists. Scientists are people. In Anderson's novel, the man suspected of theft and attempted murder is described as:

"'A scientific genius and an emotional imbecile.'" (6, p. 51)

In They Shall Have Stars:

"We put Lyons himself in charge and assigned MacDougal to act as a consultant (which he did by sniping and scoffing every minute of the day, until not only Lyons, but everybody else in the plant hated him). It was awful."
-James Blish, They Shall Have Stars IN Blish, Cities In Flight (London, 1981), BOOK THREE, p. 99.

Although I am rereading Perish By The Sword, I do not remember its outcome. In Blish's book:

"MacDougal had been right all the time...
"I gather that victory in the sciences doesn't always go to the most personable man, any more than it does in any other field. I'm glad to know it; I'm always glad to find some small area of human endeavor which resists the con-man and the sales-talk."
-op. cit., p. 100.