Dear Alexander and Vitaly,
It is hard to believe that case of Michael Faraday and his electromagnetic induction are case of chance and his idea resisted by European scientists of the time came either directly from God or from some intelligent alien’s idea thinking somewhere in space as photon or electromagnetic wave [science fiction]. His case was of a true genius. It is true he could get only elementary education and passed a long time as an apprentice in bookbinding and his education in most part was informal as he was self-educated person. However, his interest in science was always there manifested in reading books on science given to him for binding during leisure time or walking etc. Whatever he learnt about electricity learnt from books of scientists of that time and later also wrote a book on ideas of electricity of European scientists of his time. His idea of electromagnetic induction can be attributed to his observations/results of experiment conducted by him. All knowledge and results of his experiments were on the back of his mind which came to fore of his mind as an organised theory after prolong processing in back as well as in the fore of his mind.
This can be verified by going through links provided below:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Faraday.html
http://www.phy.pmf.unizg.hr/~dpaar/fizicari/xfaraday.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/faraday_michael.shtml
Let's define first what we mean by the term success in science: my definition is this:
"When, after many years of working, you managed to open a new channel in science which was proved fruitful and gave also impulse to other scientific disciplines ".
By adopting this definition I think that intuition is more important since this skill will guide you to open the new 'channel'.
Otherwise, to just take a prestigious position at a famous University, is not a success in Science, is a success in your professional life.
Vutaly, some folks in the West dream to sent their kids to Harward or MIT, instead of a State University, which cost only 10% of Ivy Ligue. So, let people come with their opinion.
Ethics of a researcher is a supplementary quality. Most of scientist I met during my
50+ years of professional experience are or were honest people.
Dear Alexander,
Your question as all the science is very complex. Formal education is important but not in all cases it works. The same situation we have with intuition. Intuition is significantm but it cannot be reaized at high level without the high level of educaton.
Alexander, ANY education is a pure must (simply needed to get a job). Intuition, on the other hand, is a rare gift. Not everybody is blessed with it. Sometimes, it's even a curse...
Kant said, "Conceptions without content are empty; intuitions without conceptions blind.'
You can´t have one without the other. I would add, though, that conceptions (less abstractly, a system of cultural principles) must come first as a context within which and over which intuition can operate.
"Conceptions without content are empty; intuitions without conceptions blind.' for conception one has to be formally or informally trained (educated) in a discipline of science for a disciplined conceptualization of one's (disciplinary) reality domain
Very intriguing question. My feeling is that you need both; a nice blend of formal education and intuition. On the other hand without education....no intuition. What is important for me is the awareness that what our knowledge (the formal education) is not the final answer and still we have to fill many gaps also at very bottom of science. Under this light, curiosity, intuition and creativity are central to open new pathways.
As the technology are going upgrade continuously the scientific research is becoming much more feasible and easy. In past several year to published a paper in any journal was very much hard task but now a day it is easy.
Dear Alexander,
Education is important, but as Einstein once said, the intuition is more important than the education.
I think is it a matter of balance....
An important part of your academic reputation, is given by where did you get your grade Public University. But you need your intuition to efficiently implement your theoretical background. Without intuition, formal education is just an empty shell; likewise, without your academic background, intuition will be no more than a lucky guess.
Again, is just an opinion....
Alexander
I do not know if the intent or completely accidentally, you asked a very perverse question.
Personally, I have a feeling that it is impossible to answer this question clearly, if we do not doing comments, that may appear in the history of science completely unique personality, similar to Einstein's genius. In this case, I say without hesitation that their actions guided primarily scientific intuition.
It remains to resolve the issue as is the case with the multitude of those called "ordinary" scientists. In my opinion in this case the most accurate will be ambiguous answer. Namely, I think that for all of us the priority is thorough education. It, however, does not provide the success, if we do not throw to him something, that so-called "gumption to do research", and under this term has several different factors, among which is also the scientific intuition.
When Albert Einstein has published his article in 1905 entitled ELECTRODYNAMICS of MOVING BODIES (known today as Special Relativity), he assumed that speed of light is independent on the speed of source, without referencing Michelson Experiment that demonstrated the same. Einstein also theoretically derived Lorentz Transform to which Maxwell equations are Invariant. He did not reference Lorentz as well. As later Einstein was asked the reason he did not referenced results, which preceeded his work by some 20 years, he admitted that he was not aware of them.
Thus, as on 1905, Einstein's intuition greately exceeded his educational level.
I agree with you, Andrzej. Mortal folks like us need basic serios education even to get a job in the field of Science. As a matter of fact we learn more and more frome one project to another, we learn all our live. But we need some intuition as well to obtain new results, some time even to formulate a new project.
Only immortal GREATS can COME with basic equations of Modern Physics, obtained by wrong derivation. MAXWELL EQUATIONS are shining example, no one blames Maxwell for the incorrect derivation, as EQUATIONS are GREAT and are, sure, CORRECT.
Since your question does not accept "both" (well you may say "equally important"), then I would say INTUITION.
Intuition not in the sense of lucky guess as mentioned above, rather in my opinion what moves science forward is "intuitive skepticism".
Without it, you may have the best background education on accepted science but no touch of intuition and you will never progress (well you may keep up-to-date, but never become the avant-garde). Even you may be prolific in publishing scientific contributions reinforcing established concepts.
To make a jump (a quantum leap), you definitely need a good dose of "intuitive skepticism" in order to break the rules and search beyond current knowledge. This "intuition" may not only support but sometimes successfully replace educational background.
Please notice, that I am not advocating for a systematic negation of evidences, but for a healthy touch of questioning.
I use to say "science is not the search for answers to enrich our knowledge, but the search for novel questions to enlarge our horizons... ...and to keep us, scientists, busy" (likely I am not the first one saying it, so if a great mind already coined it, I apologize for uncited plagiarism).
Most people, I believe, are equipped with more education and intuition than needed. What it most often comes down to is serendipity and politics, things that more or less just happen. So I would like to add another question: is it politics or serendipity that is more important for a successful scientist?
@Vitaly, very good question. I think we can within traditional level. I can now give an answer, which would requre from me to undertake a study some 30 years ago. But this intuition is based on past projects and knowledge collected.
But we can't educate intuition for doing break throgh in Science. This kind of intuition should be inborn. But sure, great result, especially in experimental studies, can come as a luck as well. CHERENKOV effect is an example.
.. now I'll open a can of worms! I think the key term here is "success" and in that case, nowadays, neither education nor intuition are important. What makes a true difference is who you know. You might have the best intuition, but if you do not happen to be in the right place at the right time or to have the right friends, you will remain just one of the many. Except than for a few geniuses, it has always been like this. In the past perhaps it was better.. perhaps
In my opinion, if you want to be success in Science you must have not only a very good and formal education and a very good intuition in order to find the the adequate research to be carried out, but you must:
*work in an institution or University that have the facilities to allow you to carry out the research selected,
* have a team of colleagues and support staff that could assist you in carrying out the selected research,
*have the necessary financial and material resources to support the selected research,
* have a good connections with other institutions and Universities in your country and all over the world, in order not to lose time, to be familiar with any new advances that could help you in the research and avoid repetition or failure, and
* have a good library that can be used by you and by your colleagues.
Matteo, RG network is unigue. Your peers read your papers abd posts, vote you up if they like what you offer them. End with your astonishing score 115, you are not doing badly. And these pears don't care about your connection, they care about you.
It s a good question and lot of debate can be done. In my opinion both formal education and intuition are required. Apart from that, scope and luck plays a great role. Sometimes accidentally things come in your favor. Because we never know where will we land up. So success in science depends on all these i.e. education, scope, luck and above all passion.
In my opinion for the modern times at least, the answer will depend on details - i.e definition of the term. In some areas of science formal education will be more important. And intuition in the others. And probably most important - capacity for originality of thought.
Using computer term to help realize it: Formal education means a hardware support (like CPU, RAM, HD and etc.); Intuition means a searching algorithm.
@Simin, I think you provided the nice determination for INTUITION, as "CAPACITY FOR ORIGINALITY OF THOUGHTS".
@Alexander, I actually had in mind a social (rather than a purely scientific) aspect of intuition (as a "CAPACITY FOR ORIGINALITY OF THOUGHTS", nicely put by our colleague). In this context, your gift of blessing may suddenly turn into a curse if your intuition makes you smarter than your boss (or your peers). You can easily picture the consequences. Slightly changing the subject, I believe Nostradamus considered his own gift of prophesy (one of the forms of intuition as an innate or hidden knowledge) as a curse rather than blessing. To put it differently, the less you know (or can previsage), the better you sleep.
The basic thought is like ART: break somthing into meta structures then reconstructure them to a new one. The intuition for Science, i think, is the meta-pattern of breaking and reconstruction. So, many intuition seems come from similarity, symmetry, scaling, etc. And intuition is one's custom that one may have used to run the brain in ART-like IMAGINATION MODE.
Intution is the quick complex mathematics that goes inside mind and is the very reason to adopt science to observe world in a scientific way. Formal education makes this process more sound in basics and proof worthy.
Sergey, I agree with you. But I never pretended for a management position, few times declined the offer. So, my peers rated me as a rather stupid man, who reject higher salary (they discount the headeck associated). But I worked for a Canadian Government Research Institute, so, finally, the upper management created for me the unique non-management position, started to pay me VP salary. Sure, I competed with no one, did not have any detractors, I was just considered as a Crazy Russian of Communist background, so, I was left alone and in peace.
Dear Dr. Alexander J. Babchin, I am late and nothing more is left to say in response to this intelligent question.
"Albert Einstein once said that intuition is 'the only truly valuable thing.' He explained that in science only 'intuition resting on sympathetic understanding of experience' can apprehend the elementary laws of the universe. Even in everyday activities, however, he felt that people should emulate the instincts of animals by being 'more intuitive – they should not be too conscious of what they are doing while they are doing it.' 'The intuitive mind is a sacred gift, while the rational mind is only its faithful servant,' he cautioned, 'but our society honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." [1].
The successes of Einstein, Picasso, Landowska, and Bill Russell testify that quality of intuition and its effectiveness, its intrinsic and instrumental value has connection with feels good. In their cases the heightened sense of mastery is matched by highly efficient performance.
SO INTUITION IS IMPORTANT.
1. “valuable thing” letter reprinted from an extensive collection of Einstein letters at dialogus::
http://www.dialogus2.org/EIN/intuition.html; “sympathietic understanding” Einstein, The World as I See It, Citadel Press; Reissue edition (July, 1993), p. 22; “they should not be too conscious” cited at
http://tennyo.com/einstein/main.html;
“sacred gift” in an email from Howard Bloom to Neil Greenberg and cited on-line at: https://notes.utk.edu/Bio/greenberg.nsf/11b7b90a9fa8e19585256c76000ed30a/
25f4f2f5e0cc667485256d330070aa70?OpenDocument.
http://www.philosophy-of-education.org/pdfs/Friday/Waks.pdf
Sure, Afaq, great scientists had great intuition. Neverthrless, Einstein has Swiss Plythech Diploma in Theoretical Physics. Thanks for your opinion, Alex.
Dear Jorge,
I would like very humbly to submit that Einstein did not say, "the intuition is more important than the education." Whatever, he said to the best of my knowledge is like something which may be got replacing "intuition" by "imagination" and "education" by facts. If you consider imagination same as intuition and education as facts, then your expression is representative of Einstein's thought. However, education is not simply facts as most facts we know from our experience, education trains a persons not only see only as facts but with a certain point of view and theories and concepts so far received. Intuition cannot be equated to imagination. One can imagine things which do not exist, sometimes it may be quite wild. Intuition is all our training or education, experiences and observation as well as their relations on the back of mind and come surprisingly to fore of our mind. It is meant simply to put question in perspective.
Faraday had the phenomenal intuition. He did not have knowlege about electromagnetic induction, he discowered this basic phenomenon of nature.
I don't think so, Vitaly. Before FARADAY, Electricity and Magnetism were treated separately, as independed phenomena. Faraday took a Compass and placed it next to the wire. Then run DC electic current through this wire. Compass reacted, the Great Discovery have been made.
FARADAY had unparalleled Intuition, Vitaly. He was not a Colloid Chemist, this field barely existed at his time. Still, he prepared most stable SOL (suspention of solid particles in water) ever. His original SOL is still stable and is demonstrated as an exposition in British Museum. Faraday discovered electrolysis as well, the basic process of Electrochemistry.
I read the last entries, and came to my mind such reflection.
We discuss, whether more the success in science depend on thorough education, or intuition. Opinions are divided, but whether, having regard only these two factors, we do not omit the other factors - perhaps even more important?
First of all, I mean about this, so called "the brave to proclaim their views". It seems to me, that scientists turn of the twentieth century and the first half of the twentieth century, in this respect towered definitely over our - the modern generation.
Why?
The answer is not easy, but it seems, that at its source is a phenomenon that today we call "scientific careers". Making a career usually bother to engaging on the difficult discussions with opponents on the issues of new theories - and additionally we do not know, they will be successful or not.
I can not help feeling, that our professional colleagues before 100-150 years, have more imagination, the jam and brave in proving the validity of their views.
Professional scientists depend on rules imopsed by their employers, they are in YOKE. Neither Faraday, nor Einstein were professional scientists at the time of their discoveries.
Usually, NEWTON and EINSTEIN are named as 2 top scientists of all times. But, I consieder FARADAY as their Equal. Displacement Current in Maxwell equations is no more than FARADAY's ELECTROMAGNETIC INDUCTION.
Faraday's laws of Electromagnetism are equal in importance to Newton's laws of classical Mechanics.
Vitaly,
When you talk about "things, true, but never were, are and will be proved", you mean "objective" difficulty of proving them, or "subjective", which shows that this evidence does not pay to perform?
Sorry for this question, but I notice in modern science increasingly common approach purely marketing and business, as opposed to the positivist ground work, before 150 years.
Dear Professor C. Lewis Kausel
Your comment / opinion is very nice.
I believe that in the age of modern era to start scientific path needs formal education, whereas to get success in scientific path needs right intuition as it is a continuous process which nurture thoughts and actions. So there is a symbiotic relation exists where right Institution always help full for utilizing the formal education in the right direction.
Dear Alexander,
Your question is slightly confusing. The word 'success' is making me a bit confused.
However, if I have understood what you mean, I should like to say that to be successful as a scientist, intuition is more important. Formal education leads to a degree. However, to uncover something original, one has to have the capacity to think beyond what is available in text books and journals. A very well trained scientist may end up modifying and generalizing results established by earlier workers. To think about something that is not available in the literature, one has to depend on intuition. Sometimes, formal training in fact hampers towards framing new ideas. Sir Henry Bessemer had commented that he could do certain things plainly because he went beyond formal training.
It is a difficult decision. There are pure theoretics that are spending their life with completing a new theory and many years after their death a new experiment comes that can be explained only by their forgotten theory. There are pure experimental scientists that they have collected dozens of experimental data although they cannot explain even the 10% of it and many years later somebody creates a new theory based on those forgotten data. So, probably the answer is:
* 51% Epxeriment-49% Theory.*
Dear Demetris,
In fact, behind every natural phenomenon, there is some hidden truth, the discovery of which leads to theories. Suddenly from nowhere, a theory can not possibly appear.
Dear Alexander and Vitaly,
It is hard to believe that case of Michael Faraday and his electromagnetic induction are case of chance and his idea resisted by European scientists of the time came either directly from God or from some intelligent alien’s idea thinking somewhere in space as photon or electromagnetic wave [science fiction]. His case was of a true genius. It is true he could get only elementary education and passed a long time as an apprentice in bookbinding and his education in most part was informal as he was self-educated person. However, his interest in science was always there manifested in reading books on science given to him for binding during leisure time or walking etc. Whatever he learnt about electricity learnt from books of scientists of that time and later also wrote a book on ideas of electricity of European scientists of his time. His idea of electromagnetic induction can be attributed to his observations/results of experiment conducted by him. All knowledge and results of his experiments were on the back of his mind which came to fore of his mind as an organised theory after prolong processing in back as well as in the fore of his mind.
This can be verified by going through links provided below:
http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Faraday.html
http://www.phy.pmf.unizg.hr/~dpaar/fizicari/xfaraday.html
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/faraday_michael.shtml
Andrzej,
I understand your point of professional career and case of jam. I don't think nowadays anybody can discover a new continent as was the case in 17th and 18th century. Presently, scientists know so much that chances of a new discovery, theory or explanation though have not ended but certainly are hard as put by Demetris, "There are pure experimental scientists that they have collected dozens of expermental data although they cannot explain even the 10% of it and many years later somebody creates a new theory based on those forgotten data."
However, I would like to add that apart from abundant thinking space, the scientists then also faced the challenge to prove science, as memory of persecutions of scientists by the church has not faded away and they toiled to prove superiority of science over dogma.
New theories in every field of knowledge would anyway continue to appear, for otherwise mankind would have already known everything, with nothing more left to be discovered.
In 1969, when man had landed on the Moon, people started to say that science has reached its ultimate. Then came the supercomputers, and again people started to say that perhaps more addition to knowledge was not necessary. By 1995, e-mailing came into existence, and once again the world was astonished to know the power of science. However, science is still making progress. In other words, discovering new things is an unending process.
Formal education corresponds to a systematic, organized education model, structured and administered according to a given set of laws and norms, presenting a rather rigid curriculum as regards objectives, content and methodology.
And so was Yakov Zeldovich, he was kicked out from High Scool, could not be admitted to University. So, his first Diploma was Sci. Dr. in Physics and Mathematics.
"I had an immense advantage over many others dealing with the problem inasmuch as I had no fixed ideas derived from long established practices to control and bias my mind, and did not suffer from the general belief that what is, is right." So said Sir Henry Bessemer.
Formal education enables people to have general knowledge from science, literature and art; as well its trains their reasoning logic. Education degrees are just certificate for job access, assessing the basic skills of the candidates. Still degrees are useful but do not guarantee a potential successful professional. Science practice requests basic formal education, but what it needs more is passion and pleasure, this helps emphasizing the intuition. Passionate people ‘into science or any other job’ are always successful people; they use often their skills with curiosity and attention even for any task or job or for better understanding or may be discovering new facts. However the problem of scientific career depending from the employers rules and needs could limit intuitive curiosity from science discovering.
Dear Fairouz,
According to you, situational matters may actually put intuition within bounds. In other words, you are saying that intuition is important after all!
Dear Hemanta, i think that the basic knowledge is a key issue, we do not need to reinvent the wheel. So a good education is necessary, anyway intuition seems to be important in the way that it could direct us to interesting scientific paths;
Dear Fairouz,
To invent something that is waiting to be invented, intuition is needed. Of course, for something that is already there, you do not need even basic science.
Vitaly,
It is not clearly stated in your last post, so I ask if you are a proponent of the thesis that in respect of all accidental discoveries we can use replacement name, that they are intuitive discovery?
I think that such a view would be, however, far from the facts.
Dear Hemanta,
Before all; basic science is obligatory unless on what basis do you perform your job? You should need all the knowledge requested by your task; which you should merge for the required response/solution to the expected problem or research. May be intuition arises after the reasoning process and analysis on the subject following the data/knowledge you do have used
Dear Fairouz,
Of course learning the basics is a must. We are however discussing about scientific inventions for which intuition is more important than classroom knowledge.
You are right Hemanta, many scientific inventions were intuitive, as well as based on previous knowledge (classroom and/or auto/self learning).
intuition. People are born scientist the same way athletes are born athletes; it is in the blood.
No creation ob ovo. Every creative intuition presupposes more than someone else´s basic intuition on which to be grounded. Scientific originality is overrated. Much less is left to individual imagination than meets the eye.
Dear Dr. Alexander J. Babchin,
Intuition,
"The successes of Einstein, Picasso, Landowska, and Bill Russell testify that quality of intuition and its effectiveness, its intrinsic and instrumental value has connection with feels good. In their cases the heightened sense of mastery is matched by highly efficient performance."
Source:
https://notes.utk.edu/Bio/greenberg.nsf/11b7b90a9fa8e19585256c76000ed30a/
25f4f2f5e0cc667485256d330070aa70?OpenDocument.
Merry Christmas to everyone!
I am afraid neither. Success in science may be quite random or dependent on other factors, e.g. based on personal connections and pseudo contributions. How would you know that a reputed scientist invented something himself? He might have stolen someone else's ideas. And what does success mean anyway?
As for the intuition-formal education conflict, I would say that our intuition is always based on knowledge (whether we realize it or not) but intuition may not necessarily form part of a scientific concept based on formal education. Which one is more important - it depends on how you define success and science and the authority (their values or mental problems) which will accept your contributions.
From my perspective, intuition is more important than any education. I hate to be impressed namely because I have a very good feeling (I need a few seconds to understand who/what can impress me) and I am only wrong when I am questioning my own intuition - the tragedy of critical thinking..
Well, Hristina, an Inventor or a Scientist has his/her own record. No dobts that Einstein or Edisson were real authors of their great works. And so was Maria Querie.. All 3 of them had great intuition, their education was just adequate.
Alexander, your remark leads into an insight that needs to be verbalized: much of a scientist´s greatness stems from his style of expressing his finds, the flair with which he names scientific or natural phenomena. Einstein and Ramón y Cajal were brilliant namers, other scientists less so. Is the gift for nomenclature intuitive or obtained from training? Probably a little of both. I once gave a course to pharmacy students on scientific Greek and Latin, and advised them that when they devise a cure for cancer they name it with dash and verve.
Sure, Nelson, the best text on Special Relativity is in Einstein original paper of 1905. He had very clear vision of the subject, explained this to a reader.
Dear Dr. Alexander J. Babchin,
Intuition is something that can not be explained but it may have domain of creativeness and inattentiveness.
Dear Prof. Alexander J. Babchin,
Successful career in science requires intuition and its interpretation by formal education.
"The intellect has little to do on the road to discovery. There comes a leap in consciousness, call it Intuition or what you will, the solution comes to you and you don't know how or why." Albert Einstein.
I’ll add a picture of the genius later.
Edison & Tesla, one with little or no education while the other with graduate degrees. Both were of comparable intellects and intuitions. Like IQ there is no way to quantify Intuition Quotient known to me yet.
Since I have no formal education in the subject of this discussion, I shall participate through clear examples in history. Hind sight! :-)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/85210325@N04/10242907544/in/album-72157645018820696/
The well-known three laws of the future of Arthur Charles Clarke (1917-2008) sentence:
- When a famous scientist says that something is possible he is probably right, but when he says it is impossible he is probably wrong.
- The only way to know the limits of what is possible is to venture beyond it towards the impossible.
- Any sufficiently advanced technology does not differ from magic.
To offer an answer to Dr. Babchin's question it is necessary to take into account that they have radically changed the social conditions in which science is made today, the way in which men of science are trained, how they obtain their results and feel new paradigms
There are very committed debates in this regard.
More information in: The educational context of science and ethical communication of the scientific result
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