SCIENTIFIC breakthroughs tend to be made by
amateurs and outsiders, not by professionals who are generally paid to
make them, a biologist said yesterday.
Relativity theory, colour photography, the discovery of Uranus and the
invention of the spin inhaler for asthmatics were all benefits that
came from mavericks whose ideas were not welcomed by the scientific
establishment, said Brian Ford, an independent biologist and
broadcaster.
Yet funding went to established scientific laboratories because it was
believed that the most innovative science comes from there, produced by
"cogs in management machines," he said.
"Almost all of the key stages that carry science forward actually come
from the hearts and minds of gifted and freewheeling individuals," Mr
Ford said last night before a lecture to the Cambridge Society for the
Application of Research. "Virtually every area where I have been
looking it has been the independent, iconoclast who has made the major
contribution."
Mr Ford cited examples such as the church organist William Herschel who
discovered Uranus, and Charles Darwin who did not complete his first
degree. More modern examples included Kary Mullis, the rollerboarding
father of the Polymerase Chain Reaction, which underpins today's
genetic research; and Watson and Crick, who discovered the structure of
DNA but had been warned away from the project by their employers.
Einstein was a patent clerk, he added, while photocopying was invented
by a lawyer and colour photography by concert pianists. "Sometimes it
almost seems that they do it better if they are not specialists," said
Mr Ford. But his ideas were greeted with scepticism by scientists and
historians.
Dr Rob Iliffe, historian at the Centre for the History of Science,
Medicine and Technology at London University, said: "It is actually
highly unusual for people who are genuinely outsiders to make
breakthroughs. In what way are these people outsiders? Einstein
received very good training. He was clued up."
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