> Like I said to Kevin, I'm trying to figure out how Wexler
> becoming an insider was so important.
>
And as I have continually explained, it was so that she could learn the
theoretical and technical skills to achieve what she wanted to achieve.
>
> According to
> Kevin, insiders already existed who imparted to Wexler
> her passion. This means that Wexler was essentially
> irrelevant, as others already had the passion and skills
> (they would have made the same discovery without
> her, as Kevin implies).
>
It does make her "irrelevant", but only in the sense that destiny had not
pre-ordained her to do this. Anyone with the right skills and the right
attitude could have done it; she just did it first.
>
> Now, on the other hand, if Wexler
> became an insider and was then able to poke holes in the
> arguments of her critics such that other insiders were convinced
> and decided to help her, then I could understand the
> importance of her becoming the insider.
>
Like I keep saying, it was other "insiders" that convinced her this could be
done, and she had recognized that she would need to become an "insider" to do
it. I don't see what is so hard about this to grasp.
>
> Remember,
> we are talking about a specific discovery that is now
> a specific historical event (and I'm someone who
> believes science is not this inevitable impersonal
> progression towards a goal, but also involves the
> contingent (and unique) dynamics characterized by chance
> and human personalities).
>
In other words, specific discoveries can only be made by specific people?
That if those people did not exist, the discoveries would never have been
made? Is that what you believe, a kind of scientific predestination, in
which God (or Destiny) parceled out specific discoveries to specific people
at the beginning of time, and all we are seeing is the playing out of that
predetermined story?
No, I'm sorry, but Wexler made her discovery because she was in the right
place at the right time, knew the right people, and worked for it, not
because it was her discovery and no one else could do it.
>
> I understand fully that in order to map a gene, you
> need to walk and talk the "shop-talk." But was
> Wexler's contribution really some "insider insight"
> that led her to think the gene would be mapped in
> a couple of years? I don't think so.
>
If by that you mean that she did not even consider the possibility until she
became an "insider", then you are arguing irrationally. Had she never
conceived of the idea, she never would have become an "insider". Rather it
was because some "insiders" had already suggested that this might be possible
that she became inspired to do it. Even so, she knew that to be able to do
it, she would have to become an "insider" herself, and it wasn't until after
she became an "insider" that she was actually able to do it.
>
> Her contribution
> was that she wasn't talked out of doing the experiment
> (and I would argue this is because she didn't have the
> experience of just how tedious and troublesome
> gene mapping can be). As she herself writes:
>
> "Our critics said "wait until a more detailed
> genetic map is available, one with many more regularly spaced
> markers." This is, of course, a much better strategy if you have
> the time to wait·..In 1979, despite such sensible advise, we
> began hunting for the Huntington's disease gene."
>
Notice that she says "our" and "we"; obviously then she is not acting alone.
I would bet that the others who compose that "we" are the "insiders" who also
believed it was possible, who taught her and encouraged her. If anything
this helps to support my position: it demonstrates that she needed the aid
of "insiders" who believed as she did, which in turn suggests she originally
got the idea from such "insiders" in the first place. Since they too were
not "talked out of doing the experiment" (despite the fact that they knew
quite well "just how tedious and troublesome gene mapping can be"), her
contribution as described by Mike was not unique, and therefore not
necessary. This further suggests that she needed their support and
encouragement to accomplish her goal.
Question: why did she not have the time to wait?
>
> Note she says "despite such sensible advise." Why did
> Wexler go to all that *trouble* to do something most experts
> said would fail?
>
Because there were other experts that convinced her it would not fail;
experts who would have eventually accomplished what she did had she never
taken an interest in it.
>
> Is everyone like this?
>
No, but they are more common than you seem to believe.
Kevin L. O'Brien