The Myth of the Abrasive Genius

http://scienceblogs.com/principles/2009/06/the_myth_of_the_abrasive_geniu.php

by zkz • 17 years ago

21 5 17 years ago

I think the only example of the insightful outsider was the fellow who ~ 80 years ago who went around espousing the continental drift theory ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener ) though his ideas weren't necessarily a complete model, which may have been the crux of the issue

dinkumthinkum• 17 years ago

I'm glad someone else is really taking the original article to task. However, I will say there is one particular Monte Carlo Methods researcher, who shall remain nameless, that definitely fits this mold!

pj• 17 years ago

Of course this guy is going to disagree with the abrasive genius idea, because he himself is one of the conscientious and agreeable types, as evidence by his dismissal of IQ as disagreeable.

I don't know why scientists think they are immune to all the social rules that govern every other aspect of life. One of those is agreeableness. People like to be agreed with - right or wrong. This is true in science too. Scientists are humans. They make mistakes. They are biased.

Look at the scientists who have disagreed with the idea that humans are responsible for and can stop Global Warming. Their voice has been repeatedly stamped out by the rest of the scientific community.

d0mine• 17 years ago

Outside of work scientists are human. At work they are better be scientists. See "Cargo Cult Science", by Richard Feynman http://www.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html

travisjeffery• 17 years ago

You're not a Scientist if you don't go by anything under than what you observes from systematic study/experiment or logically deduce.

Proper Scientists can oppose each other not difference in subjective bias but through different objective experimental data.

There are plenty of other so-called abrasive or odd Mathematicians/Scientists in history. My main areas of study are Mathematics and Computer Science so I name more in those areas (though not all listed are necessarily Mathematicians): Kurt Godel, Grigori Perelman, John Nash, Theodore Kaczynski, Nikola Tesla, ...

I could keep going but the bottom line is not the abrasive/"whatever you what to call or define them" genius is not all that odd, certainly not the majority I would think.

The Myth of the Abrasive Genius

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