> To do this, you'll need to show that Wexler's training led her
> to conclude that mapping the HD gene would not be a long-shot.
>
In your latest response to me you claim that it was very definately NOT your
argument that Wexler pioneered the idea that "mapping the HD gene would not
be a long-shot"; now you are making that exact argument to try to support
your position. As I explained before, however, Wexler did NOT pioneer that
idea; she got it from reading the literature published by a minority of
molecular genetic "insiders" who also believed that "mapping the HD gene
would not be a long-shot". In that same post you also claimed that Wexler's
contribution as an outsider was NOT mapping the HD gene but her enthusiasm
that it could be done and her unwillingness to believe those who told her she
was wasting her time. If that is true, then obviously this enthusiam and
conviction was promoted and encouraged by "insiders" who already believed
that "mapping the HD gene would not be a long-shot". In a later post, you
also claimed that her contribution was "passion and a sense of urgency".
Obviously, however, the "insider" who trained her was just as "passionate" to
see her do the research and had as great a "sense of urgency" that she do it
as soon as she was able, otherwise he/she would never have helped her.
My point is not to belittle her contribution (which was not a novel concept,
or enthusiasm, or conviction, or passion, or a sense of urgency, but the
successful mapping of the HD gene), but to dispell the myth that she did it
entirely on her own, with no training or experience or knowledge of the
molecular genetics field, in complete and total opposition to and isolation
from all those who work in that field. In reality she got the idea from
"insiders", her own enthusiam and conviction was fueled by the enthusiam and
conviction of the "insiders" who believed that the HD gene could be mapped,
she was trained by "insiders" who wanted her to succeed, and she was
encouraged by "insiders" to devote herself to doing it as soon as possible.
These "insiders" constituted a distinct minority within their field, but had
they not existed in the first place, it is highly unlikely she would have
even gotten the idea, much less the training or the encouragement, to try.
And my overall point still is that by the time she made her contribution
(mapping the HD gene), she had become an expert in the theoretical and
experimental techniques of molecular genetics; i.e., she had become an
"insider".
Kevin L. O'Brien