Shouldn't it matter more that these recipes align with reality than with what motivation research suggests? If successful scientists have innate talent and motivation, is it actually helpful to string kids without those things along? Fields like math and physics are extremely competitive, and my general sense is that you will not come anywhere near success without those things. The current disillusionment I see with GenZ suggests that it's actually long-term harmful to try to suggest otherwise. AI will only exacerbate this as it removes all low-hanging theoretical fruit.

Instead why not just sell science on how cool it is? There's so many interesting facets of how the world works, and they don't stop being interesting even if you'll never be a successful scientist.