I don’t want to imply that this is the only route to impact, just the only route to impactful research.
“Only” seems a little strong, no? To me, the argument seems to be better expressed as: if you want to build on existing work where there’s unlikely to be low-hanging fruit, you should be an expert. But what if there’s a new problem, or one that’s incorrectly framed? Why should we think there isn’t low-hanging conceptual fruit, or exploitable problems to those with moderate experience?
“Only” seems a little strong, no? To me, the argument seems to be better expressed as: if you want to build on existing work where there’s unlikely to be low-hanging fruit, you should be an expert. But what if there’s a new problem, or one that’s incorrectly framed? Why should we think there isn’t low-hanging conceptual fruit, or exploitable problems to those with moderate experience?
I like your phrasing better than mine. “only” is definitely too strong. “most likely path to”?