[the_greyd]

I don't think everybody has the capacity to be reckless. I think we are bounded by our temperament (nature + nurture). Some of us have exact perfectionist tendencies, and some of us have creative tendencies, and more. This is very much an oversimplification, but you can think of a Scientist as trying to get to the exact truth (in the realm of theory) and science as a field that aims for perfection. Engineers on the other hand are used to working with constraints and imperfect conditions (in the realm of practice), and the motto seems to be "get shit done" (a kind of pragmatism). And so sometimes you have to be a scientist and sometimes you have to be an engineer.

[AstralStorm]

Science is also there to "get things done". You set out with a goal or stumble upon one. You have only limited time to go stumbling and digging too deep is only sometimes productive. But when it is, the results are profound if not immediately used or understandable. Like the one about decision or chance exchangeability. Regardless, mathematics is partially the art of building high order abstractions that explain the world, at the core. (And of course applied mathematics is the practice.) It is not a coincidence that it was mostly developed by people with many brain cycles to spare. There are many outdated (usually superseded, limited or outright meaningless, sometimes finished) branches of it too, which may not be apparent.