Contemporary science has become so big, indeed, that it can strain the sizable resources of a big economy, a fact epitomized by the proposed superconducting supercollider. And that is not the only drawback of big-time research, for competition for grant money and scientific honors all too often motivates talented but unprincipled investigators to engage in acts that compromise the very integrity of the enterprise. The free exchange of information may give way to possessive secrecy, for example, and intellectual honesty may even succumb to the quick fix of data fraud and tampering. But what I worry about most is whether all the commotion of big science obscures the voices of a few homeless people who are today's versions of the great geniuses of old.
For over a dozen years I have been conducting extensive research on what it takes to make a phenomenal contribution to science. This work often requires ...
