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There are a lot of people with better credentials who get
ridiculed and don't deserve it;
And a lot of people who do deserve it. More of those, probably.
the history of science and
technology is full of such instances. Usually the people who
do the ridiculing are narrow-minded and lacking in
intelligence to do something brilliant or inventive on their
own.
Berzelius, for example, severely ridiculed Thomson when he
published atomic weights in 1825 supporting Prout's idea that
all elements were composed of units of hydrogen. It wasn't
until 1920 when Rutherford would demonstrate Prout's idea and
give it the name, proton. Narrow minded, perhaps. But no one
realistically doubts Berzelius' brilliance, contributions, or
inventiveness.
Such attacks should be taken as challenges; and legitimate ones
when they come from people like Berzelius.
They're also the same ones who become strangely silent when a
new idea brings in money, or changes the way we do things, or
expands the realms of science.
Are you changing subjects to engineering, perhaps? Science is
about theory and result; nature. This may or may not "bring
money" or "change what we do." But I don't imagine that good
scientists are "strangely silent" when someone expands science
theory and science result. The way you've put those ideas above
suggests you aren't clearly delineating concepts in your mind.
But it's a fact of life that research of any kind takes money
and to get that money, you need to have something working that
will bring in more money— Catch-22. But I wish the guy well.
Some research really is fundamental and important and doesn't
and never will likely "bring in more money" on a scale that
anyone alive today can possibly care about. Does that mean it
should be attended? No. It should be. And I guess one good
thing about some societies today is that some long term research
does get funded.
And on another note, ignoring science and focusing just on the
business end. I've been involved (as a recipient) of seed
investment -- a million dollars of it. I can tell you a little
about the investors -- they were very sharp people who knew well
how to find holes in something someone says but are also very,
very interested in making a killing, too. If there is any solid
possibility of making good money on a project in a reasonably
short period of time (the bigger the carrot, the longer they
might wait for it, up to a point) and if enough people can be
found who back the idea and actually put their time into it
without the investment in place, then investors will be found.
They are a pretty competitive lot. But they won't toss money
down a hole, either. (Or at least, those that will, don't last
long enough for you to ever have a chance to meet one.)
The rule here is that if you can convince 20 people to put in
their weekends and evenings into a project idea and keep it up
for a year, and if the idea has financial value, you'll find the
investment rather easily. But if you are expecting those with
money to make others get interested by paying them to be
interested and that seems to be the only way to find people
supporting the idea, well... maybe it's not such a good idea,
after all.
Jon