I don't mean to be that extreme. (Also, I don't think the Kuhnian picture is that extreme - he thinks most of the important science is "normal science", and it's just that revolutions capture our historical imagination. At least, from my memories of reading it ten years ago.)
My point is just that you have to have your own research program, with your own interesting ideas, which have to be sufficiently different from other people's that they're interesting. In some cases that can be because it goes against what many other people think (if you manage to turn up evidence for it, or for related ideas, or whatever), and in others it can just be because you propose ideas that no one else has thought of.
There's certainly no reason to go around thinking the consensus is a hoax and you're some powerless genius that will be proven right in a century's time. Even the historical cases crackpots point to aren't properly described that way.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2010-10-28 12:06 am (UTC)My point is just that you have to have your own research program, with your own interesting ideas, which have to be sufficiently different from other people's that they're interesting. In some cases that can be because it goes against what many other people think (if you manage to turn up evidence for it, or for related ideas, or whatever), and in others it can just be because you propose ideas that no one else has thought of.
There's certainly no reason to go around thinking the consensus is a hoax and you're some powerless genius that will be proven right in a century's time. Even the historical cases crackpots point to aren't properly described that way.