I had a villager named Lapis who hated working and learning. I couldn't get him to do anything that I wanted him to do, and he spent all his time in the lagoon swimming. I didn't want to kill him off(I'm nice like that) so, out of desparation, I threw him onto the research table before I went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, he was a Master Scientist. He hardly ever walked away from the table. I acutally had to FORCE him to take time off periodically or he'd keep working himself sick. He'd gone from never working at all to working too much!