You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World

By Stephen Downes - Stephen's Web. You Can't Predict Who Will Change The World
This is a good post, up to the point where it becomes jingoistic. This much seems true: "if the success rate of directed research is very low, though, it is true that the more we search, the more likely we are to find things 'by accident,' outside the original plan. Only a disproportionately minute number of discoveries traditionally came from directed academic research." More...