Yes, I totally agree with this. It doesn't mean that new ideas can't come from the existing establishment - but many times new or radical discoveries and theories have been ridiculed by a majority of the scientific community (incorrectly) to great effect. Eventually the scientific community wakes up, and the person responsible generally gets the credit - but it can be a very long time coming. It has actually served to alienate many great scientists from their fields over the years. Chandresakar was a classic example - Eddington strongly rejected his work (on white dwarf limits), and the rest of the scientific community followed suit. It pretty much forced him out of the field for about 40 years from memory. He remained in physics - but not astrophysics.
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Originally Posted by renormalised
The problem is, Paul, that when someone comes up with something out of left field they usually get castigated by the scientific community for being wrong, or crackpots, frauds etc. Science can be an awfully conservative and myopic field to find oneself in. When vested self interests, big money and academic reputations are at stake, the knives truly do come out. By and large, though, most scientists are a pretty congenial mob and willing to be open minded, privately. It's just that most will not go out on a limb to stake their reputations on something entirely new....unless they've got some backing from somewhere or from someone.
That's not to say I support Witt's assumptions, but as I said previously, I haven't read any of his material so I'll reserve judgment till later.
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