[MD] Platt's Individual Level

[Case]

[Plattman]
Please cite one idea resulting from brainstorming that attains the
significance
of ideas of Galileo, Newton, Faraday, Ampere, Helmholtz, Hertz, Curie,
Plank,
Eintein and a thousand and one other individuals who are credited with
achieiving great things in the arts and sciences.

[The Jarloker]
All of these "individuals" participated through historical negiotiation in
the ongoing process of collective dialogue, from which the mythos grows.
Without the dialogue (which by virtue is collective and social) in which
they learned to participate, no "one" of them could have said anything.

[Case]
One might add that all of academia is based on peer review of ideas and
studies. It demands the free, note free, exchange of ideas, results and
conclusion. Academics of every stripe have long practiced formal
acknowledgement of others whose ideas they use and or criticize. In these
conservative times, great harm is being inflicted on this ancient
institution, as monetary value is being made a bigger and bigger criterion
for determining intellectual Value.

But the main thing I for one am missing is: even if we grant Platt's claim
that ideas are shaped by individuals, or that ideas reside in individual
skulls, so what? If that is where they remain aren't they just so many trees
toppling in the forest?