I believe that sometimes we concentrate too much on numbers. Age, experience, amount of papers... even this forum provides scores by which we and our peers assess our capacity. These do remain valid proxies of our capability, however, remember what Einstein stated:

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand'.

Inspiration can come from anybody at any age.

There is no substitute for experience!

For sure! There are so many factors influencing maturity and knowledge development . Another thing is that you can be a junior scientist without being young and a senior scientist without being old ;-) It depends on when you start your scientific education and how long it takes before you pass your PhD-examination. To do a good review I would say it is most important to have a deep knowledge in the field or niche you wish to review, otherwise it may be difficult to know which articles to choose and which varables to filter out for description or comparison. Of course life experience and years in the field can add to the scientific competence but it is not necessarily so, neither is it not necessarily beneficial to be young, open minded and rapid in thought. The most beneficial is when juniors and seniors in a more equal mode can mutually inspire each other and co-operate, when co-constructing scientific work. I know it may be difficult but it happens.

I've researched about factors that influencing midwives knowledge in certain skill, and the one of result was experience, it has influencing knowledge and skill but it depends on what was information or skill that she or he had learned. if the information or science or skill that she/he had at that time was wrong or they were taking a false conclusion from the experience then it wont give any different. then maybe knowledge of a particular field won't comes only with the age and number of years one spends in a particular field.but depends on the learning process in the years of someone spends in that field

-hope this could help a little ... :)

I strongly believe that its the number of years spent in a particular field.

i believe that knowledge first comes by reading, than by comparing what was seen to what is read. Wisdom comes with age

Of course it is important with experience, but number of years does not tell how much or which kind of knowledge you have gained in a specific field. I agree with Nayyara Tsurayya that knowledge development also depend on the learning process - how you recognize, interpret and assimilate new experiences in your knowledge base.

Numbers of years does not tell you any thing unless it is supported by actual experience. That is why in veterinary as well as in medical fields, continueing eduation is so important.

The age/number of years tell you how to grasp a points when you are in the particular field. The knowledge in some field is not depend on the years you spend. Its really depend on how you perceive that with the experience of life.

I believe that sometimes we concentrate too much on numbers. Age, experience, amount of papers... even this forum provides scores by which we and our peers assess our capacity. These do remain valid proxies of our capability, however, remember what Einstein stated:

'Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand'.

Inspiration can come from anybody at any age.

Am i wrong saying that knowledge means understanding. This can come at once by inspiration and imagination, gradually, or never.

Knowledge in a particular field does not necessarily come with age. However it may be assumed that number of years spend in a particular field on constructive endevours within the field could contribute towards knowledge increase. Heard of career professional development within a field? So knowledge increase is not necessarily proportional to age.

"Gradually, or never". And from young, in the exceptions, I would add.

Dear Ashraf,

Thank you for sharing this post with me. I am really honoured.

Issam, I beg to differ with you. My opinion in this respect is closer to that of Lisbeth’s whereby he points out, “Another thing is that you can be a junior scientist without being young and a senior scientist without being old ;-).” In a thread with perhaps in Academic Writing I have pointed out that there are several research scholars and junior faculties who are known world over for their contribution in their field, while most senior professors are not known within the campus.

Knowledge has no relation with the age or with the number of years spent in working in a field. Even people at the verge of their retirement learn nothing. It dependence on how much Allah (God) has gifted one with intelligence and how much time one devotes to study and training in his field keeping abreast with new developments in and in related areas. One thing more to advance one must have imagination and commonsense. I have seen very laborious person who could do little because they lacked common sense. Obviously, all these traits cannot be inculcated nor these belong to a race, culture or nation.

About importance of imagination there is a famous quote of Einstein well-known to everybody on this blog. About, commonsense there is an interesting Indian story:

A Raja wanted his dear son to be one of the greatest astrologers in the world. He searched a grand astrologer to teach his son and got success in hiring one, the best. The teacher took his student to his Ashram in the jungle and taught him astrology as much he knew. After being satisfied that his students had learnt all, he sent message to the Raja that his son has become the master of astrology. The Raja became happy and appointed a day and asked to present his son on that day in the court so that he could examine him and show his courtiers how great astrologer his son was.

On the appointed day, the teacher and the student were presented before the Raja in the court. The Raja took something out of his pocket and put it in his palm and closed the fist without knowledge any person present there and asked, “Tell me son what is in my fist using your knowledge”. The son threw dice, made certain calculation and answered something round is there in your fist. The Raja became happy and asked tell me more. The son again threw dice, made certain calculation and replied that circular thing has a hole in it. The Raja became happier and asked for more information, that time the son answered it has something different fixed on one place of that circular thing. The Raja said, “Very good son! Now tell me exactly what it is.” The son after thinking a while answered, it must be upper disc of the stone hand driven grinder (chakki). The red faced king shouted on the teacher you have taught my son that stuff. The trembling teacher replied politely, “Maharaja! I can give only vidya (knowledge), not buddhi (commonsense/wisdom). Were it I, obviously I have told you that it is a jewelled finger ring.

Agree on the need for imagination, as well as for curiosity and creativity to be able to expand knowledge beyond well-known boarders, and those properties don't rely on age, gender or experience.

Mohammeds story about the Raja's son made me give the concept experience another thought - I can expere without understanding what I expere. Its like describing a phenomenon without recognizing patterns and conceptualizing knowledge to a higher level. Its like sensing without perceiving - as when I hear a foreign language without comprehending it, I sense it but cannot perceive the words and their meaning. So you can experience a lot without gaining the expected higher level of knowledge. Of course experience is important but it is not the only property important for expanding knowledge.

The calm of age make person more reflexive. The experience with time pass make person relate different knowledges and this make wiser.

But this can make mature young from early.

@ Mohammad Firoz Khan: Honor is mine for your response to the post. You and Lisbeth Nilsson have put a very rightful comment. I think this ideology should come out the posts and should reflect in the society and in every profession so the the deserved person gets right importance and perks immaterial of its age / gender. I mean there should be criterias defined buth those criterias should be logical and not just historical. Ana also has a point that knowledge comes gradually and the calm of age make person more reflexive. But I thinkin addition to that, inner intuitions and passion can reduce the duration this gradual inheritance of the knowledge, commonsense and wisdom. I am indeed grateful to all of you have unbiased comments and opinions from all of the question followers.

Ashraf: You are always welcome to ask such intelligent questions compelling to think over.

With age you can less passion but no intuition (I think). More contemplation than action. More observer. (Less incisive but more relative).

It's nice your question.

Mohammad and Ashraf

I feel I need to elaborate on my very brief first answer "There is no substitute for experience! "

I want to do this from my own personal experience. When I was writing up my D.Phil thesis, 3 years after researching it, my first chapter was actually a very detailed review of my research project. It was a very detailed review chapter containing over 200 references. I remember my supervisor telling me "This is so impressive even I can't write as good a review as this one!" Of course my supervisor was far more experienced than I was, being at least 25 years older than I was, but do you think I could have produced such an impressive chapter if I decided to write it in the first year of my research? The answer is of course not. When you reach the stage of writing up your own thesis you actually know more about your own research project than your supervisor.

When you write a review article, you need to be able to connect all the published information in a coherent way so the end result looks like original piece of work. The connection must be in such a way where you make deductions and conclusions and be able to generate new ideas worth of researching further. I don't think I could have done that in my first year of my PhD. This is what I meant in saying "Their is no substitute for experience."

While it is not impossible for postgraduate to write a review article in his first year of research, I feel it is unusual. This is my own experience at least.

Hi Issam,

Thanks for the elaboration. I think we are not denying the importance of experience factor. But who decides "HOW MUCH" experience is enough to be thorough in the field? and can it be generalized? You wrote your review at the end of three years of your thesis, after around 3 years of research experience. But can you confidently say that everybody can do it after 3 years? OR can't anybody do it before 3 years? Isn't experience a variable trait? I think that,s where other factors comes in play.

Dear Ashraf

"But who decides "HOW MUCH" exoerience is enough to be thorough in the field.?" The answer to this question is simply you are the best judge of that. So I can't really speak of the others, I spoke from my own personal experience.

Can I confidetly say that everyone can do so after 3 years or less or more? Of course not. As I said earlier I can't speak for the others. Everybody is different and every case is different.

There is certainly not a clear cut answer to your main question as there are many factors involved. But I think we all agree knowlege and experience are all important factors and that both are time dependent! When is the time to write a review article? Answer you are the best judge of that.

"aux ames bien nees, la valeur n'attend point le nombre des annees" I liked Lisbeth and AnaMaria"s observations...

Dear Issam,

I certainly agree with you that you yourself are the best judge to decide your caliber. I think I did not convey my point correctly.

My point is, lets say I consider myself eligible for writing review articles, but then can I get invitation from the journal to write a review article considering I am just 3 years old past my PhD in the field, have only 12 publications so far. So editors will invite only those who spent more than 10 years in the field and have 50 plus publications. This again is just one example. Like this, in every field of science I think and I experience that seniors or so called 'big shots' are given priorities in terms of positions, funding, grants, awards and so on. Same would be the case in other professions. How far is it justified? I mean there should be other criterias as well addition to just age and / or experience. Because as others pointed out correctly, mere spending more number of years, just being a spectator without any action does not and should not make them more important than the one, though junior, but highly dedicated, hard working, ambitious people.