About competition in science

Public consensus largely beautifies scientific research. One thing that is overlooked it how competitive it really is. Big fish academics compete with each other over who has the most, or any, publications in important journals aka Nature and Science. Then, that all important Nature paper becomes the fish hook for PhD and sometimes project students, that drives them to work like mad, or at least pretend so. And,oh dear, such grief when the paper is rejected and people have to downgrade and send it to a lesser journal. The worst of all, for me, is that they become so full of themselves even at the notion of such recognition. People who are most of the times emotionally immature and cannot cope with either fame or failure. I sincerely worry about some of my colleagues, and wish they could see the forest for the trees. This way they could try to fit some pragmatism into their life plan, and become better scientists in the way. Perhaps even turn into more decent human beings.