Gentleman scientist

Sir George Cayley, 6th Baronet, discovered fundamental principles of aeronautics.

An independent scientist is a financially independent scientist who pursues scientific study as a hobby. The male expression gentleman scientist arose in post-Renaissance Europe but became less common in the 20th century as government and private funding increased.

History

Self-funding scientists were more common in the days before large-scale government funding was available, from the Renaissance at least until the late 19th century including the Victorian era, especially in England. Many early fellows of the Royal Society in London were gentleman scientists. The position significantly reduced during the 20th century as other forms of science funding increased.

Benefits and drawbacks

Self-funding has the disadvantage that funds may be more restricted; however, it has the advantage of eliminating a number of inconveniences such as teaching obligations, administrative duties, and writing grant requests to funding bodies. It also permits the scientist to have greater control over research directions, as funding bodies direct grants towards interests that may not coincide with that of the scientist. Peer-review is sidestepped. Furthermore, intellectual property of the inventions belongs to the inventor and not the employer.

Modern science requires competence and may require access to scientific equipment. However, independent scientists may have past careers as funded scientists, cooperate with funded colleagues, obtain partial equipment-only grants or choose directions where the most expensive resource required is the researcher's time. If the research succeeds, gentleman scientists publish results in the same peer-reviewed journals as funded scientists do.

Scientists may choose to work on unusual projects with high risk of failure also when the grant system does not fund them. A scientist could be attributed the status of independent scientist if they work on such projects during a gap between two academic positions, for example.

Modern-day independent scientists

Modern-day independent scientists who fund their own research on an independent basis include, for example, Stephen Wolfram who funds his research through the sale of Mathematica software, Julian Barbour, Aubrey de Grey, Barrington Moore, Robert Edgar, Susan Blackmore and James Lovelock.

Peter Rich said of Peter D. Mitchell: "I think he would have found it difficult to have gotten funding because his ideas were rather radical." Mitchell went on to win the Nobel prize for chemistry in 1978. Chemist Luis Leloir funded the research institute he headed, the Institute for Biochemical Research, in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He won the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1970.

See also

• Category:Gentleman scientists
• Small Science and Big Science

Notable gentleman scientists

• Albert Einstein
• Robert Boyle
• Henry Cavendish
• Charles Darwin
• Benjamin Franklin
• Goldsworthy Gurney
• George Frederick Kunz
• Antoine Lavoisier
• Alfred Lee Loomis
• David Rittenhouse
• James Lovelock

References

• Martello, Robert, The Life and Times of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney: Gentleman Scientist and Inventor, 1793–1875 (review), Victorian Studies, Volume 42, Number 4, Summer 1999/2000, pp. 688–690. Indiana University Press.
• Porter, Dale H., The Life and Times of Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, Gentleman Scientist and Inventor, 1793–1875. 1988. Lehigh University Press, ISBN 0-934223-50-5.
• Jon Cohen, Science, Vol. 279. no. 5348, pp. 178 – 181, DOI: 10.1126/science.279.5348.178, Scientists Who Fund Themselves [2]
• Jonathan Keats, Craig Venter is the future Salon.com Dec. 2007. [3]