In any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important contributions.Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement and explain your reasoning for the position you take. I

Human beings are thirsty for knowledge. Our never-ending quest for quenching this thirst has led us to the discovery and invention of endless ideas, theories, technologies and much more of the like. This thirst of curiosity has given rise to many fields and in itself with the passage of time has institutionalized an educational and professional system of classification. The wiser and experienced like to classify themselves as experts where as the naive and callow are referred to as beginners. It has been indoctrinated in these taxonomic systems that beginners are likely to contribute lesser to the field itself than the experts. The validity of this statement holds with respect to day-to-day logic but the world presents us with exceptions from time to time, and it can often be the case that beginners end up making enormous contributions that drive contemporary advancements. In my opinion, the statement holds true but isn’t necessarily valid from all perspectives.

In any field, be it technology, science or philosophy, experts are recognized as people who have spent substantial amounts of time studying the field, understanding its inner workings and rudiments, and applying them in day-to-day lives to come up with newer and apposite ideas that benefit mankind. Beginners, however, have either recently started studying the field, or have recently started working in the field. This leads us directly to the logic of experience. An experienced person is bound to know better what the field lacks, how it can be improved and what sort of ideas can be implemented to tackle these problems. For example, in a corporate setting the general manager who has worked his way up the corporate ladder over the past 20 years definitely has more experience in the market and knows what the shortcomings of the market are. He is bound to make more important contributions to the company, overall, compared to the new intern. The intern might face more problems initially, and it might seem that these problems could lead to contributions, but the problem the beginner faces is generally due to the lack of knowledge and experience rather than an abundance of it.

An expert, in addition to being experienced, is more knowledgeable. He knows the inner mysteries of the field, and his eagerness to demystify them can be satiated easily because of the prepossessed knowledge. For instance, Einstein’s theory of relativity, can be seemingly confounding to a lot of people, but many of the science students study the equation and it’s background very early in their educational path, atleast by the tenth or eleventh grade. But how many of them can actually make a connection between the special theory of relativity and time travel? I would argue, only a few, maybe! On the contrary, theoretical physicists have taken these pre-existing theories and turned them wonderfully into different concepts ranging from time travel, to refuting time travel, to big bang and string theory. It is because of this knowledge that the experienced often possess, that propel them to make better, relevant , novel and more important contributions.

However, we cannot entirely discount the possibility that beginners can make important contributions in a field. A beginner, being the naive soul they are, are more inquisitive and curious, because most of them cannot fathom the boundaries of the field. This makes it possible for them to ask interesting philosophical questions pertaining to the field which can often lead to important contributions in the future. In the case of Michael Faraday, who established the famous laws of electromagnetic induction, we can see that Faraday was not a member of the group of noble physicists. Yet, with hardwork, he gained knowledge and contributed his theories which make up one of the most important ideas in physics.

This leads us to being able to aptly conclude that although beginners might make important contributions to a field, it is definitely more likely for an expert to do so, because of their vast knowledge and experience in the subject or field.