Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id QAA19746 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Fri, 9 Jun 2000 16:45:50 +0100 Message-Id: <4.3.1.0.20000609093951.01dfde70@popmail.mcs.net> X-Sender: aaron@popmail.mcs.net X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Version 4.3.1 Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2000 10:42:39 -0500 To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk From: Aaron Lynch <aaron@mcs.net> Subject: Einstein and Darwin In-Reply-To: <2D1C159B783DD211808A006008062D31017458B5@inchna.stir.ac.uk > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
At 10:55 AM 6/8/00 +0100, Vincent Campbell wrote (in Chuck vs. Richard thread):
>Thanks for the comments (and corrections on Einstein, I'd just remembered
>the bit about him not being able to get a university job after graduating).
The reason this correction is worth observing is that it dispels the myth
that Einstein could just "be a genius" and poof, out comes special
relativity, general relativity, etc. In reality, Einstein had to spend
time, money and hard work hard to develop his talent into expertise. (I
don't know who paid his tuitions, but someone had to.) Then he had to work
hard to apply his expertise to the problems he was considering, again
through long hours of hard work and intense thinking. What is important is
not so much whether he developed his expertise with the help of a
university or through spending time and money on self-directed education.
What matters here is that he did the work. Many of us trained in physics
during the late 20th century can look back upon relativity and say that its
basic tenets seem obvious, but we should bear in mind that developing
viable theories and hypotheses from the state of lesser knowledge that
preceded them was hard work even for Einstein. To people further removed
from Einstein's work and the work of other theoretical scientists, the
enterprise of developing theoretical frameworks and proposing hypotheses
may seem like bourgeois decadence, though it is anything but.
Part of the hard work results from all the constraints involved. Einstein
had to keep his postulates as consistent as possible with existing
observation and data. Moreover, in order for his work to be significant,
worthwhile, and testable, he could not just express existing theory in new
jargon. He had to show how his theories led to novel yet accurate
explanations of existing observation and predictions of outcomes of
proposed observations. That further constraint imposes further hard work.
Because of the hard work involved, I am personally unimpressed by anyone's
attempt to back their work with claims of "being a genius." Rather, people
who place too much emphasis on the importance of being "gifted" are often
thereby blinded to the importance of hard work in making real achievements
in science--a situation frequently leading to flawed or diminished
achievement. This is one of the key reasons for giving credit to those who
do the work, even when they are reclusive types who prefer to avoid the
limelight. It is, of course, also a reason for denying undue credit to
those who seek to take credit for others' accomplishments.
As for Darwin, he did not do his evolution work by first earning a degree
in paleontology. He did, however, spend decades developing his talent into
expertise before publishing The Origin of Species. Again, much hard work
was involved.
--Aaron Lynch
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