Well said and I largely agree with your assessment of Mullis. One thing to consider: there is some added value in getting discoveries sooner (e.g. something with medical implications, like PCR). I also wonder about the contingency/path-dependence of science/tech on large scales—if it had been discovered at another time by another person would science (and history) have followed the same path?
On a broader level, I wonder how science/tech contingency interacts with the contingency of culture and history as these set what people value and care about in the first place, in turn affecting what people study/build. I think about how the history of science and biology would be different over the last 150 years if we only had Wallace and not Darwin. Wallace was not nearly as respected as Darwin, didn’t have nearly as much evidence behind as theory, and had a more theological framing on Natural Selection. I wonder how what what the ripple effects would be today if we only had Wallace and not Darwin
On this I agree with you. But the Darwin issue is a bit of a special case—the topic was politically/religiously charged, so it was important that a very respected figure was spearheading the idea. Wallace himself understood it, I think—he sent his research to Darwin instead of publishing it directly. But this is mostly independent of Darwin’s scientific genius (only mostly, because he gained that status with his previous work on less controversial topics).
On the whole, I agree with jbash and Gerald below—“geniuses” in the sense of very smart scientists surely exist, and all else equal they speed up scientific advancement. But they are not that above ordinary smart-ish people. Lack of geniuses is rarely the main bottleneck, so an hypothetical science with less geniuses but more productive average-smarts researchers would probably advance faster if less glamorously.
You could make a parallel between geniuses in science and heroes in war: heroic soldiers are good to have, but in the end wars are won by the side with more resources and better strategies. This does not stop warring nations to make a big deal of heroic exploits, but it’s done to improve morale mostly.
Well said and I largely agree with your assessment of Mullis. One thing to consider: there is some added value in getting discoveries sooner (e.g. something with medical implications, like PCR). I also wonder about the contingency/path-dependence of science/tech on large scales—if it had been discovered at another time by another person would science (and history) have followed the same path?
On a broader level, I wonder how science/tech contingency interacts with the contingency of culture and history as these set what people value and care about in the first place, in turn affecting what people study/build. I think about how the history of science and biology would be different over the last 150 years if we only had Wallace and not Darwin. Wallace was not nearly as respected as Darwin, didn’t have nearly as much evidence behind as theory, and had a more theological framing on Natural Selection. I wonder how what what the ripple effects would be today if we only had Wallace and not Darwin
On this I agree with you. But the Darwin issue is a bit of a special case—the topic was politically/religiously charged, so it was important that a very respected figure was spearheading the idea. Wallace himself understood it, I think—he sent his research to Darwin instead of publishing it directly. But this is mostly independent of Darwin’s scientific genius (only mostly, because he gained that status with his previous work on less controversial topics).
On the whole, I agree with jbash and Gerald below—“geniuses” in the sense of very smart scientists surely exist, and all else equal they speed up scientific advancement. But they are not that above ordinary smart-ish people. Lack of geniuses is rarely the main bottleneck, so an hypothetical science with less geniuses but more productive average-smarts researchers would probably advance faster if less glamorously.
You could make a parallel between geniuses in science and heroes in war: heroic soldiers are good to have, but in the end wars are won by the side with more resources and better strategies. This does not stop warring nations to make a big deal of heroic exploits, but it’s done to improve morale mostly.