25th March 2005, 1:01 AM
Except "the new guy" doesn't ever actually come around and do that, well in science anyway. I guess in business it applies. Generally scientists are always open to any sort of PROOF they are wrong, but in pretty much every case of the upstart trying to say "check this out", they only prove their own inadequecies... It really does take becoming "one of them" to really do that stuff. Then again, science is all about constantly proving each other wrong, and right, but generally it's about the proof above all else.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)