Mindlessly strap some wings on yourself and the only place you're going is six feet under. In aviation everybody was building on the shoulders of those that came before them. That included Wright Brothers who heavily credited Otto Lilienthal among others. You could draw a tree of aviation and it'd be going back with Clement Adler, Percy Pilcher, George Cayley, and many more names. And these guys were all brilliant inventors, engineers, and entrepreneurs in their own right. All engaging in a similarly rigorous process, but starting with less available information at their fingertips.
In many problems where we're all just standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, somebody's going to eventually get high enough to grab the flag. And while that final achievement deserves distinguished recognition, marginalizing the merit, impact, and ability of the countless individuals holding us up is just crass.
> And while that final achievement deserves distinguished recognition, marginalizing the merit, impact, and ability of the countless individuals holding us up is just crass.
Nothing I wrote marginalizes Lilienthal. I never wrote that the Wrights started from zero. In fact, I wrote that they researched all the available knowledge of flight from the start.
In many problems where we're all just standing on the shoulders of those who came before us, somebody's going to eventually get high enough to grab the flag. And while that final achievement deserves distinguished recognition, marginalizing the merit, impact, and ability of the countless individuals holding us up is just crass.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Lilienthal