How to become a scientist

[Chriss]

Hy.

Is it possible to become a scientist without having a college diploma in that field ?

Edited April 23, 2015 by Chriss

[Strange]

There are certainly scientists who started out without an education in science. For example, you might work as a lab technician or an engineer supporting scientists and then move into working as a scientist, picking up some of the knowledge you need on the job.. I don't know how often this happens in reality, though. (I worked on a cosmic microwave background experiment years ago, without even having an engineering degree at the time.)

[iNow]

I guess it depends on how one defines scientist. is it one who practices science or one who is compensated for their efforts?

[StringJunky]

I would say science is a particular investigative process or style and if you adhere to that process you are a scientist. I think it's more a way of thinking than a job description.

[ajb]

As stated it depends on the definition of a scientist. If you include laboratory technicians and so on, then the level of qualifications is probabily not that high. I used to see jobs advertised that stated you only need A-levels, that is 16+ school certificates. I think these jobs are less common now as the employers get enough applicants with degrees to chose from.

 

By 'scientist' I would understand this to mean a PhD in a scientific subject and currently working in research. But I am sure others will have different definitions.

[hypervalent_iodine]

Where I am from, lab tech positions require at least a BSc. Some you can get away with by having a diploma or certificate in a relevant field, but given what the job market is like for science graduates, you would be unlikely to be competitive without a degree. Unless you already have significant work experience, that is.

 

If by scientist you mean someone who is actively participating within the scientific community, engaging in research and publishing, I think you would find it hard to be taken seriously on your own without a degree (or even without a PhD). In theory, it is possible and certainly has been done, but the impracticality of such a endeavour would weigh quite heavily on your chances. For all the time and effort you'd have to go to prove yourself, you're probably better off going to uni.

[ajb]

Where I am from, lab tech positions require at least a BSc.

I think that is more the norm today. My brother who has a PhD in biology, was saying that some relativity low paid and low ranking positions are filled by overqualified people, he himself was one of these for a while.

[timo]

Is it possible to become a scientist without having a college diploma in that field ?

Strictly speaking, but possibly not what you meant, that is not even possible but fairly common. In the sense that people have a diploma in field A and during their initial career drift into another field B. Generally, "fields of research" are not very sharply defined in practice (e.g. yesterday I attended a talk by a climatologist who was very proud of their ice-simulation model - I'd bet not everyone working on that model started out in climatology).

[ron8]

well... Leonardo Da Vinci didnt have an education and he is known as pretty much the top sientist ever lived , you just need to invent something really cool I guess

[Klaynos]

I work in a field not even dimly related to my PhD. Like ajb's brother I was massively over qualified for my first king term job after PhD, fortunately due to good management a bit of luck and really enjoying what I did and do I wasn't in that position for too long.

 

As others have said it depends what you mean by scientist. Where I work most of the scientists have degrees, a couple are those who have done it by experience via labs etc. But that is unusual. Most recent employees have masters degrees or PhDs. More and more a bsc isn't enough.

[ajb]

well... Leonardo Da Vinci didnt have an education and he is known as pretty much the top sientist ever lived , you just need to invent something really cool I guess

 

 

I do not think there is much to be gained here by pointing to historical personalities. For one, times have changes. Secondly you should not highlight extraordinary people as 'the norm'.

[Unity+]

It really depends what you mean.

 

In my opinion, a scientist is someone with curiosity about how the Universe runs. They take the scientific method very seriously and make it something as a core to their personality, i.e. rationality. Curiosity and rationality are two of the main aspects of being a scientist. One important one is the willingness to admit ignorance to all and be a student rather than a teacher.

[Klaynos]

There's also lots of amateur clubs, there's an old research observatory near where I live that is completely restored and run by a not for profit club. They do some really interesting things, quite varied from restoring old optics to cube sat receives. They even use breaks in radar signals to detect meteorites which is really cool.

[Lyudmilascience]

i had the same questing I want to become a scientist too but I am getting an art degree. I think you wont be able to be a pure scientist, studying things coming up with experiments, you might however become researcher, assist looking for data and testing experiments.

[fiveworlds]

Leonardo Da Vinci didnt have an education and he is known as pretty much the top sientist ever lived , you just need to invent something really cool I guess

 

 

No Leonardo Da Vinci was born to a rather intelligent father of high standing who taught him many things. He requested that leonardo be put under the tutelage of a renowned artist Verrocchio. He also knew the prominent Medici family whom later became his patrons. Leonardo was definitely not an uneducated peasant boy.

Edited September 26, 2015 by fiveworlds

[Strange]

Leonardo was an engineer and artist, not a scientist.

[arc]

In my humble opinion, what is a scientist, and who can determine those that qualify, are those individuals who have achieved the highest level of education in those chosen fields.

In our area you may do electrical work on your own home as long as you get the proper permits and complete the inspection processes. Doing this does not ultimately qualify you as an electrician. This is the crux of the matter, only those that meet the educational standards set forth, by those qualified to judge, can be certified as having the minimum standards to be considered as competent in those prescribed fields.

That being said; certain individuals during their own eras, or soon following, have been given the privilege to be called a scientist by that period's qualified contemporaries, this despite them as not having completed the accepted educational requirements of the time period.

Ben Franklin and the Wright brothers used their time period's known scientific processes to make their discoveries that ultimately added to the prior scientific understanding and consequently made them deservedly famous.

What was Ben Franklin's education?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin
Franklin's father; "wanted Ben to attend school with the clergy, but only had enough money to send him to school for two years. He attended Boston Latin School but did not graduate; he continued his education through voracious reading. Although "his parents talked of the church as a career for Franklin, his schooling ended when he was ten."

While for the Wright brothers, only one had completed high school.

Would these inadequate educational backgrounds be insurmountable in the eyes of today's academia? Or would it be a case by case determination based on the scientific value of the individual's discovery?

Edited September 27, 2015 by arc

[ajb]

Would these inadequate educational backgrounds be insurmountable in the eyes of today's academia? Or would it be a case by case determination based on the scientific value of the individual's discovery?

It is possible that without any formal education one could publish a good paper in a peer-review journal. Journals do not usually have a formal educational requirement or insist that you be currently associated with a university or something similar. The work should be judged on its own merit. That said, if you are unheard of then the referees are for sure going to quickly 'google' you to see if they can find some background information. Not that this should really be used to judge the paper.

 

However, it is generally in my opinion unlikely that someone without a formal education up to PhD level will be able to contribute to science. The problem is they do not know what is required of them, the standards of work, the language and so on.

 

Undergraduates sometimes publish work, but this is usually as part of some supervised project. The supervisor knows what is required, provides technical help and advice.

 

There are some exceptions to this such as astronomy, aspects of zoology and so on where 'many eyes' are better than 'one big one'. The papers themselves will most likely be written by some coordinating scientists, though the amateurs themselves maybe listed as authors also. Things like the 'zooniverse' and other Citizen Science projects spring to mind.

[Sato]

I think that it's a bit (very) myopic to say that it's unlikely for someone without any formal education to be able to contribute to science. Sure, you can say that it's unlikely that they will contribute to science, as most people who intend to go to school, but certainly you can't say much about their ability to do so. Not having a formal education does not equate to working in isolation. I've contacted and been given regular advisement from professors in both the Ivies and a local college, while not being a university student.

 

It is reasonable to say that in order to contribute to modern research, one must train at a particular pace and in a particular way, particular in that it isn't compatible with how things were done centuries ago. So to some extent, the argument against allegory to Newton through Aristotle is acceptable. But, there are much more recent examples. Take Hua Luogeng, who through the later half the the last century made several notable contributions to number theory and related areas. More than that, Hua eventually came to direct and pioneer several major efforts for the mathematics research community and maths education in China, even heading the development of relations with western scientific institutions after political turbulence in the 1960s-70s. Take another example, Gregory Chaitin, who co-discovered and heavily developed algorithmic information theory, a field both thickly profound, rigorous, and even applicable in statistics and machine learning; maybe one of the most recent advances in science that I'd say so. Gregory is still alive and doing research, favourable in this respect to thousands of apathetic maths/CS faculty round the world, today. These people both ended up accepted in their communities and became full professors, not that that fact is necessary to realize my point. There are several others like this that I've stumbled upon, but these two I thought of immediately; I'm not sure that there's any enumeration of such people around the web.

 

To add personal anecdote, I've been acquainted with an applied physicist (full with DARPA funding and full knowledge of PDE's) and a biomedical engineer (currently a visiting scientist at a top institution), who haven't more than a high school formal education.

 

Would you have it that these people not done the good they did, so long as they went the usual way? The only reason they succeeded is because they stumbled upon individuals who cared more about what they could do than what credentials they ought to have, even before they made their marked contributions. This right now isn't directed in response to ajb's comment, for I don't know his views on this or if they're mutable, but I wish vainly that anyone with such frankly bigoted views might come to know this and end up not denying someone who seeks opportunity the hand they need.

 

I've not had a good experience with formal education and am currently deciding on whether to pursue it the coming fall, but the rash of meta-ivory tower bigotry that I find is strongly disinclining me. Whether this is reasonable is a murky matter, but I feel very strongly about the freedom to pursue a life of scientific contemplation (in analogy to religious/spiritual contemplation), and am not keen to a compromise that siphons away the substance and presents the veneer. Who would *dare* disparage a jew for trying to practice his religion, even though it would have made his/her life much easier to have adopted a slightly different mythology and switch the star for the cross; this is the retrospectively irrational decision my grandparents made in those circumstances.

 

Not everyone fits into the formal institutions of training and education, and they may flourish if supported on the paths they take. It is scary that they are often not. I haven't yet been put in the circumstances where I'd need serious support, but the telescope stares harshly. I hope this clarifies some ideas that may not be so obvious, or their seriousness not so obvious, to those who have not had think much about this trouble.

[ajb]

I think that it's a bit (very) myopic to say that it's unlikely for someone without any formal education to be able to contribute to science.

You may be able to find a few examples of 'amateurs' who have contributed. Both Hua Luogeng and Srinivasa Ramanujan may fall into this category, however giving a few examples of extraordinary individuals who lacked formal education is not really supporting the idea that 'amateurs' are likely to be able to contribute. These people were extraordinary and not the norm.

 

It is quite possible for someone to contribute, especially with the arXiv and open access journals. However, experience suggest that few 'amateurs' really produce work of great interest to the community. The problem is it takes a lot of time and effort to study mathematics and science, not everyone has the time to do this on top of other work commitments. The same is true of genuine original research. On top of that, experimental sciences may require equipment that is not available to 'amateurs' with modest budgets.

[Sato]

You may be able to find a few examples of 'amateurs' who have contributed. Both Hua Luogeng and Srinivasa Ramanujan may fall into this category, however giving a few examples of extraordinary individuals who lacked formal education is not really supporting the idea that 'amateurs' are likely to be able to contribute. These people were extraordinary and not the norm.

 

It is quite possible for someone to contribute, especially with the arXiv and open access journals. However, experience suggest that few 'amateurs' really produce work of great interest to the community. The problem is it takes a lot of time and effort to study mathematics and science, not everyone has the time to do this on top of other work commitments. The same is true of genuine original research. On top of that, experimental sciences may require equipment that is not available to 'amateurs' with modest budgets.

 

This is precisely why I didn't mention Ramanujan, because of the lore of savantism surrounding him. Hua may be likened to him by their shared poverty in youth and both receiving no formal education, but Hua didn't hint much raw, extraordinary intelligence in the sense of Srinivasa. He took interest in mathematics, studied, read papers, picked up on some ideas, and initially published some competent (perhaps not significant) work and corrections in a local journal. Chaitin went to an advanced science school nearby me and certainly didn't stand out, entering an okay city college afterwards.

 

These are not extraordinary examples, these are examples of individuals who took on independent study and entered the necessary effort. I imagine you come across many enthusiasts who try to propound their own ideas w/o much awareness of the field, and so result in either crackpot or trivial work, but those are a different breed. The argument you are using is the same one as telling an athlete "you don't have the genes", and you can be sure there are many ashes-to-phoenix stories of this. Mathematics even, is less dependent on 'genes' and intrinsic extraordinarity than athletics, so this should be much less of an issue. Of course, we are talking about the ability to make contributions, not necessarily great ones.

 

On the topic of not having enough time, I recently met a man, he looked like he was in his 40's, who had studied English in college. He'd been working as a financial controller but simultaneously independently studied enough to learn QFT, was preparing for the Physics GRE, and was taking a course at a university round here to bolster his C.V.. I know someone who studied physics, taking no pure math courses past linear algebra in college, and is now doing research at a big place here in the USA, in what I can barely recognize as algebraic topology. Neither've these examples had any training in pure maths, but to sharply different degrees; what would you say about them? Is your inclination to formal training in the field of interest, or just a credential?

[arc]

Can one simply walk the walk without the Podiatric supervision.

[ajb]

These are not extraordinary examples, these are examples of individuals who took on independent study and entered the necessary effort.

Okay, the individuals listed put lost of time and effort in, coupled with some inherent talent and a bit of luck they made contributions. Again, nowhere have I said it was impossible to make contributions without formal education, just today I think it is less likely than before.

 

One reason is simply that the body of knowledge is huge. People need to specialise to a certain field and then pick a few selective topic therein. Because of this someone with reasonable general science/maths knowledge will find it hard to contribute.

 

There are some subjects that seem more amenable to amateurs. Tiling theory seems to be one. For example, Marjorie Rice found certain tiling of the plane that were thought not to exist. So again, amateurs can make contributions, just I think generally it is unlikely and getting harder to do so.

 

The argument you are using is the same one as telling an athlete "you don't have the genes", and you can be sure there are many ashes-to-phoenix stories of this.

I disagree with this. My argument is more like the following. Unless an athlete trains hard, follows the advice of the coach, eats well, enters competitions at various levels and so on he/she is unlikely to be selected for their country's Olympic team.

 

In science the standard route of training is through academia.

 

 

On the topic of not having enough time, I recently met a man, he looked like he was in his 40's, who had studied English in college. He'd been working as a financial controller but simultaneously independently studied enough to learn QFT, was preparing for the Physics GRE, and was taking a course at a university round here to bolster his C.V..

He is now taking physics courses at University. That is great and lots of people study part-time or online etc. It is difficult to organise time for this, but people do manage.

 

Has this guy published any original works? And if he did, would we really call him am amateur if he has some university training? Okay this maybe at undergraduate level, but still.

 

I know someone who studied physics, taking no pure math courses past linear algebra in college, and is now doing research at a big place here in the USA, in what I can barely recognize as algebraic topology.

This is not so uncommon as you may think. My background is also physics and most of the pure mathematics I have studied was not formally via a course or counted for any credit. Not having an undergraduate degree in mathematics is not a barrier to contributing to mathematics. I assume that your friend has a good degree in physics, engineering or some other subject that uses a lot of mathematics.

 

I know a string theorist whose first degree is in engineering.

 

Neither've these examples had any training in pure maths, but to sharply different degrees; what would you say about them?

Well, how sharply different?

 

One great example could be Witten. His undergraduate degree is a major in history and minor in linguistics. His PhD is in physics.

 

There are other examples of people 'crossing over'. It is considered very difficult, but clearly possible.

 

Anyway, I think this is twisting the topic slightly. The examples of people I know who are professional scientists may not have an undergraduate degree in exactly the field they now work in, but they all managed to complete a PhD programme in a closely related field.

 

Is your inclination to formal training in the field of interest, or just a credential?

As a credential a PhD shows that you are able to do research work and have passed the 'trial by fire' that your co-workers have. On the practical side it should give you some specialist knowledge. It soon does not really count for much as everyone else you work with has such a degree. Your publication list becomes more important than formal qualifications rather quickly.

Edited September 28, 2015 by ajb

[Sato]

 

One reason is simply that the body of knowledge is huge. People need to specialise to a certain field and then pick a few selective topic therein. Because of this someone with reasonable general science/maths knowledge will find it hard to contribute.

 

There are some subjects that seem more amenable to amateurs. Tiling theory seems to be one. For example, Marjorie Rice found certain tiling of the plane that were thought not to exist. So again, amateurs can make contributions, just I think generally it is unlikely and getting harder to do so.

 

We are discussing individuals who do specialize in very selective topics. Not science enthusiasts whose study time is occupied by PopSci magazines and Nova Documentaries, but individuals who took great interest in some topic(s) and put the work in to contribute to them.

 

Luogeng and Chaitin both made their contributions around the time of Marjorie Rice. I've also just recalled another name, Walter Pitts, who did as well. They all did significant work in very deep and difficult fields, but I can't say I've heard of any amateur tiling theorists besides Marjorie.

 

I do not see how it is much more difficult today; maybe they'd have to read an extra monograph and 50 more papers than they did then, but this doesn't add much to the unlikelihood factor. Today I would actually assert that it's much easier, given the plenty of textbooks, lectures, and explanations available freely on the internet. Maybe even more importantly, it's much easier to contact professionals in the field to ask questions, and even collaborate with other students. No waiting weeks for a letter, digging for an Alaska phone book, or trekking to find someone willing to help understand some exercise or concept: you have email, a direct listing of an author's research interests and their other publications, IRC, forums and stackexchange where I've never not received the proper help. I think this trumps the extra reading they'd have to do for the more developed field.

 

And in precaution, I will reiterate that the work of a researcher could be and was just as complicated at their time as it is for many today. Surely you're familiar with Grothendieck's work in the 60's, as an example closer to home. The aforementioned individuals did work whose complexity was not so far from today's, and did so with greatly less resources.

 

Do you have any rationale for it being more difficult today that stands against this point?

 

In the way of this collaborative discussion, given this, I think the conclusion is that it is much easier, and accordingly that it should be discouraged less—following in your trend of relating likelihood and difficulty.

 

 

I disagree with this. My argument is more like the following. Unless an athlete trains hard, follows the advice of the coach, eats well, enters competitions at various levels and so on he/she is unlikely to be selected for their country's Olympic team.

 

In science the standard route of training is through academia.

 

I do not know if you intentionally distorted my comparison to athletes and genes for the sake of debate, or if you misunderstood my wording, but I was countering your comment regarding Hua as "extraordinary" in the Ramanujanian sense. That one cannot make contributions without a formal education unless they have some "extraordinary" gene, but as you acknowledged in your last response "...the individuals listed put lost of time and effort in, coupled with some inherent talent and a bit of luck they made contributions.". These are qualities that are not so rare in whatever circumstances, and so my point was that saying "don't reference person X because he is extraordinary" isn't a very reasonable way to discount them as "evidence". I thought it was clear that I was discussing a gene for becoming a self-taught scientist, not a gene for becoming an academic.

 

 

He is now taking physics courses at University. That is great and lots of people study part-time or online etc. It is difficult to organise time for this, but people do manage.

 

Has this guy published any original works? And if he did, would we really call him am amateur if he has some university training? Okay this maybe at undergraduate level, but still.

 

He studied most of the undergraduate curriculum and many "graduate" topics himself (actually with a textbook-club of amateurs he started). I think it was that were some topics he didn't cover so thoroughly in his independent study and weren't too pertinent to his interests, that he's decided to take a course in them before applying to grad school.

 

I am not sure, but if he did, most of his training, waive maybe two courses, was independent. Would you really mark someone university trained for that, especially if they were courses auxiliary to his interest done primarily for the sake of boosting a C.V.. I do not think that's a proper threshold for "university trained", as even your previous responses implied.

 

 

*discussion of people who crossed over, from my examples to Witten*

 

There are other examples of people 'crossing over'. It is considered very difficult, but clearly possible.

 

Anyway, I think this is twisting the topic slightly. The examples of people I know who are professional scientists may not have an undergraduate degree in exactly the field they now work in, but they all managed to complete a PhD programme in a closely related field.

 

What would you say if our aforementioned physics student, 20 years prior, did not major in English. What if he studied a semester of physics and left for work or some other circumstance. What if he was in the same exact circumstance he's in now, having not been awarded a degree but certainly prepared?

 

I think that you, and I posit that this is a terrible thing, a form of discrimination if you will, would deny him the opportunity to enter the community even if he did produce his own research. In fact, and even more acutely, I anticipate that you would deny to train him and even let him go through that 'trial by fire' that Witten went through, simply because he does not have even the lower credential. That, seeing him beside another who did have a credential, you would not even consider the former, would not give him the opportunity. I am almost certain that this is true, and it is a sort of litmus test for whether the concern is for the credential or the ability. My point is that it is wrong, morally and economically, to weigh his efforts lesser than the other, likely not even considering who you might infer to be a stronger scientist. You can consider this by induction up through faculty positions.

 

Here when I say 'you' I mean the greater academic-science community, but I imagine you would do similar placed in those circumstances. This, I think, makes it clear that the credential and not the content is the concern.

[ajb]

Today I would actually assert that it's much easier, given the plenty of textbooks, lectures, and explanations available freely on the internet. Maybe even more importantly, it's much easier to contact professionals in the field to ask questions, and even collaborate with other students.

From this perspective it is, or should be, easier. I agree.

 

 

 

Do you have any rationale for it being more difficult today that stands against this point?

Just the amount of background knowledge has increased, say as compared to say two hundred years ago. Further and further specialisation has made it more difficult for people to read science and mathematics papers, this includes experts in one field reading something in another very close field. Working from just high school mathematics and science is not enough in general.

 

So people have to read a lot more and so on. This should be easier via the internet as you have said.

 

In the way of this collaborative discussion, given this, I think the conclusion is that it is much easier, and accordingly that it should be discouraged lessfollowing in your trend of relating likelihood and difficulty.

Emails, Skype, forums etc have made communication much easier. I agree.

 

I do not know if you intentionally distorted my comparison to athletes and genes for the sake of debate, or if you misunderstood my wording, but I was countering your comment regarding Hua as "extraordinary" in the Ramanujanian sense.

I have misunderstood your point.

 

That one cannot make contributions without a formal education unless they have some "extraordinary" gene, but as you acknowledged in your last response "...the individuals listed put lost of time and effort in, coupled with some inherent talent and a bit of luck they made contributions.".

Nowhere have I said it is impossible to make contributions. Just today is is less likely and I think it will get harder.

 

These are qualities that are not so rare in whatever circumstances, and so my point was that saying "don't reference person X because he is extraordinary" isn't a very reasonable way to discount them as "evidence". I thought it was clear that I was discussing a gene for becoming a self-taught scientist, not a gene for becoming an academic.

Then I misunderstood your point. So, excluding maybe some very famous examples, I suspect it will be difficult to point to many amateurs today that are making real contributions. Not none of course.

 

He studied most of the undergraduate curriculum and many "graduate" topics himself (actually with a textbook-club of amateurs he started). I think it was that were some topics he didn't cover so thoroughly in his independent study and weren't too pertinent to his interests, that he's decided to take a course in them before applying to grad school.

 

I am not sure, but if he did, most of his training, waive maybe two courses, was independent. Would you really mark someone university trained for that, especially if they were courses auxiliary to his interest done primarily for the sake of boosting a C.V.. I do not think that's a proper threshold for "university trained", as even your previous responses implied.

The term 'amateur' in this context is not so well defined. Typically I would say without a PhD and publishing papers in okay peer-review journals. I would not include university undergraduates that publish results of projects and so on, these are well supervised in general. So your friend has published original work?

 

What would you say if our aforementioned physics student, 20 years prior, did not major in English. What if he studied a semester of physics and left for work or some other circumstance. What if he was in the same exact circumstance he's in now, having not been awarded a degree but certainly prepared?

Then by my definition I would classify him as an 'amateur', provided he was not working as a physics professor.

 

 

I think that you, and I posit that this is a terrible thing, a form of discrimination if you will, would deny him the opportunity to enter the community even if he did produce his own research.

I thought we were discussing people who are or wish to produce original work?

 

This maybe the route of our seeming disagreement.

 

In fact, and even more acutely, I anticipate that you would deny to train him and even let him go through that 'trial by fire' that Witten went through, simply because he does not have even the lower credential.

Not necessarily, though not having at least a related degree could make funding awkward. In the UK there are formally no requirements to enter PhD study. Getting funding from EPSRC there are requirements; maybe less requirements for direct money from the university. So, provided your friend convinced a potential supervisor and the graduate admissions board that they could complete a PhD in reasonable time then they maybe admitted. The best way to convince them is with formal qualifications.

 

The US system that Witten went through was similar in this respect. I think it is harder now, but I am not sure.

 

That, seeing him beside another who did have a credential, you would not even consider the former, would not give him the opportunity. I am almost certain that this is true, and it is a sort of litmus test for whether the concern is for the credential or the ability.

They guy with the credentials, all other things being equal, would be seen as the safer bet. This applies across all aspects of human interactions and not science in any particularly special way.

 

 

Here when I say 'you' I mean the greater academic-science community, but I imagine you would do similar placed in those circumstances. This, I think, makes it clear that the credential and not the content is the concern.

The problem is how do you judge 'content'?

 

The easiest and maybe not the absolutely best way is via formal examinations coupled with some kind of short interview. Without the qualifications one would have to convince people of their merit and knowledge. This is possible, but a good degree from a reasonable university is the standard way to open the possibility of attending grad school.

 

Back to the point of 'amateurs'. In my field there are a couple of people who are not currently associated with a university or research institute. However, they are not amateurs by my definition. They all have PhDs, but were unlucky not to find positions. No papers I have read have been produced by people genuinely outside of academia. The subject is not flooded by papers by people who really came from nowhere. It is dangerous, I agree, to extrapolate that to all science. Still, I do not think many amateurs have great impact across science today.