Greed is not the most motivating factor, but it certainly is a key one. If you adopt the rule that greed has no place in &quot;high minded&quot; stuff like saving lives, then all the smart people who are nonetheless greedy will go into areas other than saving lives. There is no correlation between intelligence and selflessness. You give the best and brightest a choice between earning millions on Wall Street or never breaking $150k in science (after 7 years of low-paid doctoral and post-doctoral work) then you&#x27;ll cut yourself off at the knees.