Socialized Health Care in the USA

[weakwarrior]

My point is that not only do those things exist, but that many of them are more important than the number of years spent in the field -- which your post seems to imply is the dominant factor.

I felt that we were talking past each other and almost clarified my last post, but I wasn't sure so I left it as is. Now I'm pretty sure we were missing each other's points. So first for the clarification. I am not interested (and never meant to imply an opinion) on the order of importance of various factors leading to a scientific discovery. I am just saying time and effort is a prerequisite. The arithmetic of who thought for how long is of course then irrelevant, and there are many problems, such as the earth going around the sun, which existed for far longer and were solved by young scientists. All of this proves your point (one which I don't disagree with) that experience isn't everything. I however feel immersion in a topic is needed.

The rest of this is more or less nits (well except a point towards the end), and I don't have my Einstein biography handy so many are from my memory which sucks.

Who's grunt work? His own? Yeah, sure, though by his admission it was *after* he'd figured out what was happening that the grunt work came -- in the development of the details of the theory and the derivation of the consequences...In his papers on that topic in that year, he does not reference any previous work.

First of all learning Newtonian mechanics, Maxwell's laws and Lorentz's work (as a nit let me point out these 3 people, along with Doppler and Hertz are all referenced in his paper), to the point of feeling comfterable manipulating them and what not I consider Einstein's gruntwork (for honesty's sake let me point out that I never had more than a fleeting idea what was going on in Maxwell's laws and never even looked at Lorentz work). However, even if you consider the gruntwork what came after (prepublication) it still shows the need for immersion since otherwise it would have just been one of those vague ideas which don't go anywhere. Of course since I think we're in agreement on this point I see no reason to elaborate more here.

He was a clerk in the Bern patent office, the best position he could get because of his terrible academic record.
Actually completed it that year. On this point you are at least close to correct.

If I'm not mistaken, he also tried to get this accepted as part of his Ph.D. thesis but it wasn't accepted for some reason or other. He published it after he submitted his Ph.D. but wrote it before. Yes he was a clerk in a patent office but that doesn't negate his being a student at the time too. So I think I was more than close.

Nope. His primary circle of with whom he did interact did not contain any top level scientists or mathematicians. Indeed, other than their relation to Einstein during his Bern years, they are all complete unknowns.

I'd consider Weber a luminary. Kleiner, based on the infallible wikipedia seems to have been a someone too. All in all, using a graduate student as an example of someone from outside the academic ranks seems like a stretch to me.

And, as an insignificant and poorly regarded graduate student, none of the luminaries in his field would have given him much attention at that time.

Actually his work was published, and quickly at that, it was accepted in scientific circles very quickly (according to wikipedia anyway) and 16 years later he had a Nobel Prize. I'm not sure but maybe you mean by my standards he'd be ignored in the present, but by my standards he wouldn't be considered an academic outsider.

Since the counterexample was to the claim that experience is the key requirement for credibility, I think it is excellent...So what. Had he had a million discoveries due to logic, the one due to luck still proves my point -- that experience is *not* the only, or even the most important, element in success or progress.

Like I said I think this has to do with a mutual misunderstanding. I didn't mean to imply experience is the only or most important factor. My point in this case was that it was not sheer luck - many other people would have thrown out the petri dish and started a new culture. His other discoveries help support the notion that he was a keen observer and allow me to claim that his understanding the significance of what he saw does not imply everyone else would have done the same.

Yes. But since no one is speaking of anyone who has *no* experience in the field, your comment is specious.

The other misunderstanding. My one line comment which started all this was in response to the notion that Kandrathe, who I believe has *no* experience in the field (I could be wrong) now knows more than all the academics in the field. This was not a discussion of Carlin. I thought my posting in response to Kandrathe's post implied that, but looking back at it his post was long and my response didn't quote that part of his post. My bad. Now in retrospect I'm not sure what experience in the field Carlin has. But this is more of a question than me looking to argue. For the record a 30 year old B.S. degree doesn't count in my book.

All this, incidentally, reminds me that I think you misread my first post. I was just suggesting that global warming and its correlation with (perhaps even causation by) CO2 levels may not need a genius to observe. It may just need careful science and scientists would be a good place to look for that. Since, at least at first, I thought we disagreed on other things I got sidetracked and forgot to mention this point.

The point is that there is, at best, only a very weak correlation between experience and expertise.

You haven't shown that it's very weak just that it's not sufficient. And besides I think weak is a compliment:).

An extreme example is Mozart and Scarlatti. Scarlatti had the training, the experience; but Motzart had the talent.

Mozart hard plenty of training. Since he started so young his major compositions could (in my opinion should) be considered coming after some experience too. Yes he had talent too.

And, for a great example of scientific self delusion, see the story of N-rays. And that was not even for funding:)

Awesome story. Never read about it before. The moral of the story is never let anyone see you doing an experiment - although everyone who's done a Ph.D. knows this. This story is from a long time ago so maybe people didn't know this fundamental research law yet, though the number of miracles done in private going back thousands of years would seem to indicate that this researcher was just poorly trained. Like I said scienctific progress needs good training. You've proven my point.