Not surprisingly nearly none of old discoverers of knowledge like Newton, Darwin, Maxwell, Einstein, etc. would be even considered "scientists" by modern criteria.
This claim is just bizarre to me.
Downthread I read you as implying that Einstein (for example) wouldn't be considered a scientist "by modern criteria" because he opposed peer review. As I see it, anyone who'd write off someone as a non-scientist for opposing peer review has a warped idea of what a scientist is.
Being a scientist vs. being heard by other scientists. I wonder how the surfer dude with his E8 based Theory of everything does in that regards?
The way current scientists inter act is error prone - but it gets some results. And eventually ideas get heard. For every Wegener there are thousands of Homeopaths, Snake Oilers and physics cranks that spread noise.
Please have a look at this Youtube user account. I immediately thought of this site upon watching a couple of his clips. I am told we have tried here to publish some stuff in audiovisual fomat, but it didn't quite work out. Maybe we should contact this guy, perhaps we could profit from each other's work and experience? I am fairly hopeful that he could use some of the material here, and we could use some of his talent with the medium.
This video, for instance, looks like it was taken right out of this very blog