Sunnyd's Thought for the Weekend is
"In science, the credit goes to the man who convinces the world, not to the man to whom the idea first occurred." Sir William Oster (1849-1919)
My first reaction was What a coincidence! The book I happen to be reading loves to point out that very fact- and I think that that is one of truest (and saddest) facts of science. For instance, in the book, A Short History of Nearly Everything (which I'm not done with yet) one very good example of credit not being given is the unlucky Gideon Mantell. This man was a doctor in practice, but an amazing (amateur) paleontologist as well. Here's a short bit of how unlucky this poor man was: his wife discovered a fossilized tooth, and taking it home to her husband who takes interest in this type of thing, Mantell immediately realized that this belonged to a new creature: something we now know as a dinosaur, but nobody knew at that time. After being cautioned by his friend (a rather eccentric person) to be careful as to how he presents this find, he spent three years trying to find evidence to support the fact that this belongs to a new type of very old creature. One expert in Paris said it was from a hippo, another researcher said it beloned to a lizard. Of course, during this time, the very friend who told Mantell to be careful went ahead and discovered a dinosaur himself, and is credited with the first published description of a dinosaur. Of course, this wasn't the least of Mantell's woes, but only one (and definitely not the worst). There are probably millions of tales like these because people weren't lucky enough to be the first, get published, attract attention, or even be alive when people finally realized the discovery's worth (that can happen with really big discoveries). Scientists, clearly, have to be people-smart, science-smart, and have a lot of luck to be successful.
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