It will not be obvious for some while whether the author is revolutionary or misinformed, but, historically, revolutions have usually depended on painstaking groundwork of the sort the author disparages in this statement. The discovery of gravity built on painstaking and thorough astrometry, and the discovery of evolution built on painstaking and thorough taxonomy. In neither case could it justifiably be said that these precursors "couldn’t possibly generate insight about the things we care about."
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It will not be obvious for some while whether the author is revolutionary or misinformed, but, historically, revolutions have usually depended on painstaking groundwork of the sort the author disparages in this statement. The discovery of gravity built on painstaking and thorough astrometry, and the discovery of evolution built on painstaking and thorough taxonomy. In neither case could it justifiably be said that these precursors "couldn’t possibly generate insight about the things we care about."