blog




  • Essay / The romanticized element of "genius" in scientific discoveries

    A highly controversial topic about the nature of scientific discoveries is their ability to appear seemingly out of nowhere. These theories seem to arise like an explosion of inspiration accessible only to the brightest minds. However, a great discovery is not created in a vacuum and relies largely on its acceptance within the scientific community as well as the dedication and training of the scientists themselves. Both of these are driven not entirely by inspiration, but by a dedication to learning that manifests itself through high levels of training and education. There is a great societal tendency to romanticize the element of “genius” present in every discovery. This glorified image of the scientist as a hyperintelligent being is perpetuated by the media's portrayal of scientific discoveries occurring as self-contained events, regardless of the support or collaboration present prior to the discovery. For example, Thomas Edison is often considered the sole mind responsible for inventing the light bulb, but in reality he had a team of inventors working with him and drawing on knowledge from many previous discoveries . Leadership researchers have a theory about the tendency to overattribute successes and failures to the leader, called leadership romanticism. Romanticism of leadership implies that society is inclined to give leaders credit for thrilling victories or responsibility for excruciating defeats, even if they do not deserve it. However, discoveries are not made in a vacuum or by incredibly brilliant minds. Genius is not perfectly self-contained, as there are strategies and mindsets that can create the combination of discipline and intellectual curiosity commonly known as “genius.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”?Get an original essayA spectacular scientific theory is considered such for two main reasons. Possible wide acceptance of the discovery throughout the scientific community, and the change or explanation of a pre-existing state of thinking. Therefore, theories rely not only on the scientist, but also on the adoption of their arguments within the broader community, because "only one person can make claims and defend them, but the transformation of claims in knowledge is carried out by the communities”. . Therefore, the reasoning of an individual scientist and the reasoning of the scientific community constitute the most important contribution to a major discovery, the unifying characteristic being that one must not simply discover or accept this reasoning by inspiration, but by practice, preparation and training. Public adoption of a theory can be quite slow, as evidenced by the backlash to Darwin's original thesis in the years following its publication. It takes time to work and reason with new theories because the community must learn the appropriate way to think about the issues that have been exposed. Darwin's case is no exception and serves as an excellent example of how, over generations of learning the theory of natural selection, science came not only to widely accept it, but became " more Darwinian than Darwin” not only assimilate the theory, but also be trained to think like Darwin on a wide variety of situations. How then does education and training create the ability to reason both for the community and for.