Quote of the week- Henry David Thoreau- the artist and the artisan

"The Artist is he who detects and applies the law from observation of the works of Genius, whether of man or Nature. The Artisan is he who merely applies the rules which others have detected."
-Henry David Thoreau

I think (for what it is worth) that this quote could probably be adapted to science- "the difference between a scientific "artisan" and a scientific genius is that the artisan applies the rules and practical techniques that others have developped to new problems, the genius/true scientific innovator develops new principals or new techniques".

From my own experience, the obvious example of this was the discovery of electron microscopy and its first application to biological samples in 1942: a development that led to a flurry of publications in animal anatomy (or, more accurately, micro-anatomy) as different scientists were able to exploit the technique. There are a great many examples of this in science- pretty much all scientific "fashions" (with the possible exception of the space race in the 1950s and 60s)historically originated in this way- the fascination with genetics in the 1980s was partly fueled by a technical breakthrough by Prof Sir Edwin Southern in 1975; the popularity of hydrocarbon chemistry in the 1960s is another example.