GRE Issue Topic 25

Sample 1:

Humans have conquered their surroundings and overcome their limits in leaps and bounds marked by great innovations. Our ability to integrate and reorganize existing understandings, to bring new order to chaos, has been the driving force of our progress. It is no wonder that people seek to understand the process of innovation and encourage those that are most likely to succeed in revolutionizing the world.

So far, invention has been considered the patrimony of experts, and one of the reasons is the fact that, in order to be able to combine fragments of knowledge in new ways, one needs to have sufficient knowledge in the first place. It is not difficult to understand why such perceptions abound, especially if we consider highly complex fields that require specialized, in depth, knowledge. Take for instance astrophysics or microbiology – a beginner in these fields would only possess summary knowledge of the forces at play and the processes involved. They wouldn’t be able to revolutionize theories on dark matter without a basic understanding of quantum theories, and by the time they would have acquired this knowledge, they would be considered experts. This is also the case of Albert Einstein, whose major contributions in the field came as a steady progression after getting his PhD. Most important of all, Einstein’s theory of relativity only started taking shape after years of teaching theoretical physics at the universities in Zurich and Prague, and two years spent studying continuum mechanics, the molecular theory of heat, and the problem of gravitation.

When it comes to establishing whether beginners or experts are more likely to revolutionize a new field, it is important to note that a lot of the past inventions have come from people that had to constantly struggle with a specific problem. A lot of the people that have contributed to the advancement of society were experts in a field (they were in the proper circumstances to encounter the problem and possessed sufficient knowledge to recognize and solve the issue at hand). This is the case of prominent physician, John Snow, whose field work in tracing the 1854 cholera outbreak in London is regarded as the founding event of epidemiology. He encountered many cases of viral diseases as a physician, which, alongside his skepticism of the then dominant miasma theory of infection, spurred him on to research the Soho epidemic and discover the source of the outbreak.

Moreover, one should always keep in mind that it’s not sufficient to have a good idea; a researcher should also be able to support it and make it known. This holds especially true when considering the basic conditions for any form of research to be considered a major contribution in a field. Namely, said research should revolutionize its field of study, it should be known by other experts in the discipline and obtain external validation (even if at a later point in time). In this sense, experts enjoy more credibility than beginners, and are likely to be taken more seriously.

Furthermore, experts already have networks in place and get quicker access to information like interesting research proposals and latest advancements. Companies and other researchers will choose to go to the person with a better reputation. The same can be said in terms of funding, experts can attract more funds for promising research– simply because they have more experience and an established reputation.

Studies have shown that experts are more productive and have better work ethic and time management skills. In addition, being an expert doesn’t signify the death of creativity, like the statement implies, blindly sticking to one method has more to do with personality. The same goes for linking expertise with age, as neural imaging studies have shown that the aging brain is more creative, uninhibited and shows better crystallized IQ. Benjamin Jones has also found that over the past 100 years, the major scientific discoveries have come from people with ages between 30 and 50.

Overall, when it comes to having major contributions in a field, experts possess the advantage. They have more knowledge, an increased ability to organize the information they possess, more resources to fund research and a better work ethic than beginners.

Sample 2:

A person who is constantly working to achieve his aim in life and in the end does achieve it is an expert. An expert is an expert because he knows all the aspects related to his field and he knows the answers to all the related questions. The experience an expert has gone through to reach his aim can never be felt by a beginner and most of the times what procedure a beginner goes through an expert has already gone through. Therefore, I do not agree that in any field of inquiry, the beginner is more likely than the expert to make important discoveries. It can be by chance that beginners discover something but otherwise an expert is an expert because he has already gone through all the stages of learning.

We see so many scientific creations around us. There is so much of hard work that has gone into making the perfect creations. There must be so many failures before the actual creation was made. If there were many failures they do not make an expert less trained but he is learning from his experiences. His experiences provide a yardstick for the newcomers in the same field. A new chef can make a dish nicely the very first time but making the same dish again and again with the same flavor is an expert’s work. Similarly, Newton did not become an expert in his field after discovering that apple fell from the tree because of some force but when he researched and studied on it then only was he able to prove that the force is gravity. A newcomer can make a film and that can be appreciated by every one but mastering the techniques of good film making is not that easy, one has to put in real hard work to master it. There are film directors who are one film wonders and there are those directors who keep making good films after good films. “Always listen to experts. They’ll tell you what can’t be done and why. Then do it.” Robert Heinlein has described in these lines the true meaning of an expert.

Although there is no comparison between experts and beginners but still there are beginners who have created history. Madam Curie is one such example who discovered radium. Radium is used till date and Madam Curie won Nobel Prize for this discovery of hers. A beginner has many ideas and his area of thinking is vast as compared to an expert’s restricted vision.

All the important discoveries are made by experts and there contribution in the history can not be denied. In any field of enquiry we need to trust our experts as they have put in so many years of research into it. There has been so much practice gone by an expert into discovering something and such practices make a perfectionist.