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The Forum > Article Comments > The fantasy of Australians' collective powers > Comments

The fantasy of Australians' collective powers : Comments

By Thomas Barlow, published 13/8/2007

The belief that Australians are uniquely original and inventive is one of the great Australian legends. And it isn't true ...

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Rhian, I cannot understand how you can seriously assert that a proposition like this is capable of falsification.

The matter which you pursued, Nobel prizes, would to many people be quite irrelevant, as they have no regard for a left wing subversive organisation like the Nobel foundation, much less for its awards.

Agreement on what the proposition means is the first hurdle, but possibly surmountable. Gathering all the facts for and against, and agreeing which of them may be relevant, is impossible.

We are in the domain of belief, not science.

While Leo does not have the answer either, his suggestion is probably more sensible, and workable than yours.
Posted by Nick Lanelaw, Monday, 20 August 2007 12:17:23 PM
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Nick

The benchmark of Nobel prizes per capita was not my choice, it was the editors of OLO who put the statement that Australia has more per capita Nobel laureates than anywhere else in their advertising blurb for this month’s featured topic. This statement is clearly capable of falsification. All I did was spend 10 minutes with Google and an Excel spreadsheet to work out whether or not it’s true, and found that it isn’t.

While no single set of data will persuade true believers, belief that Australians are uniquely original and inventive is surely capable of being tested against evidence. The claim presented by those who hold this proposition to be true, that we have more Nobel laureates per capita, is false. The other evidence presented in the article and this forum, apart from anecdotes and individual examples, points the other way.

I’m more persuaded by the evidence that Barlow quotes on patents etc and also evidence such as Australia’s modest representation in lists of the world’s greatest inventions and inventors.
Posted by Rhian, Tuesday, 21 August 2007 11:08:16 AM
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There are many inventions and ideas that don't get patented because it is just too expensive and are too easily copied by just varying inventions by 10%.Thomas Barlow has embarked on mission impossible.You cannot evaluate all inventions through mere number comparisons.Some are far greater than others and who has the intellectual capacity to determine their worth?

His emotive title was designed as a put down for our collective psyche so he could bathe briefly in his version of fame.
Posted by Arjay, Friday, 24 August 2007 12:01:38 AM
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