> Which is how I assumed you meant it; maybe you didn't read my post carefully
> enough. You seemed to be saying that some people were inherently better
> able to reason than others, so they develop theories the rest of us could
> never think of. I was trying to explain that that is not the case; that
> with sufficient education and training and experience, anyone could have
> come up with any theory.
It isn't particularly relevant to the main debate, but I find your
assertion surprising enough to question. Do you have any evidence
that anyone could in fact come up with any theory? My experience is
certainly the opposite. For example, I have had all of the education,
training and experience in physics that one could ask for, and I am
utterly convinced that I could never, under any circumstances, come up
with string theory; I very much doubt that I could even marginally
contribute to it. I don't find this at all surprising: it's clear to
me that some people reason better than I do, and very clear that some
reason mathematically better than I do.
Steve Schaffner
sschaff@slac.stanford.edu