The latest Badenoch-ism

Quite!

It's great that some people can do these things, but they are exceptions, not the norm. It was always one of the things that slightly annoyed me about Stephen Hawking, not only was he an exceptional person in his own right, but he had other exceptional people around him, I wonder how many people didn't get half the stuff he had that enabled him to live so fully? He was also lucky that his brilliant work was in his mind. DOn't get me wrong I'm not havcing a go at the late Professor, but using him as an example.

I wonder how many of the '..millions of people [who] can and do contribute...' have people who support them?

How many have multiple disabilities?

How many people make a living out of '..creative work from home.' when they'e housebound? There's a lot who are able bodied who can't make a living in creative industries?

Elon Musk is a genius, whether we agree with him or like his products, that what he is, most of us aren't. Bill Gates, might be autistic, he thinks he probably is, he was lucky in that he got into a new, emerging industry right at the start, understood what it was about and how to use it and create products.

It would be great to live in a world where everyone is encouraged, supported and educated to be the best they can be, but being exceptional is not something you can punish people into being, by making their lives even more difficult.

TheCatWoman said:

not only was he an exceptional person in his own right, but he had other exceptional people around him

A charitable foundation in the USA paid a large sum every year for his round the clock nursing care at work and home, he and his wife were fully aware that if they had only been able to use NHS he would have been put in a care home and not been able to continue his work, as NHS simply could not fund the home care he needed to stay employed. They could only fund fully residential care for him.

Before this he relied on his wife and on graduate/PhD students of his acting as live in carers.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Stephen_Hawking

Thats the sort of thing I mean, how many of us could have that level of charitable funding and from another country?

Phased said:

Point taken tho' - it's a combination of being different and intellectually capable that makes for popularity.

Agreed. Of course, you have to be different in the ‘right’ way. Hawking was white and visibly disabled. Jason Arday, on the other hand, was black and autistic.

OK - hmmmm.... celebrity disability popularising physics.  Please excuse the "gallows humour" however given the current pressures on academic staffing I fear we might encounter a spate of non-lethal lab accidents, library shelf collapses and accidental inoculations.  Point taken tho' - it's a combination of being different and intellectually capable that makes for popularity.  That wasn't always the way was it?  Our current "popular scientists" seem perhaps to be selected by society for their good looks, charisma and capacity to popularise science more often these days above their capacity for their ground breaking discoveries and insights. 

Actually, any number of people with a higher degree in a relevant subject could have written A Brief History of Time. I can think of several who have written similar books but haven't had the same degree of visibility because they are not disabled celebrities. Brief History was supposed to be a popular book for the general reader. What really made his name within the physics community was The Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time, and that was a collaboration with his then-colleague George Ellis (now an emeritus professor at Cape Town and regarded by many physicists as Hawking’s equal in importance).

Actually, any number of people with a higher degree in a relevant subject could have written A Brief History of Time. I can think of several who have written similar books but haven't had the same degree of visibility because they are not disabled celebrities. Brief History was supposed to be a popular book for the general reader. What really made his name within the physics community was The Large-Scale Structure of Space-Time, and that was a collaboration with his then-colleague George Ellis (now an emeritus professor at Cape Town and regarded by many physicists as Hawking’s equal in importance).

Phased said:

Point taken tho' - it's a combination of being different and intellectually capable that makes for popularity.

Agreed. Of course, you have to be different in the ‘right’ way. Hawking was white and visibly disabled. Jason Arday, on the other hand, was black and autistic.

OK - hmmmm.... celebrity disability popularising physics.  Please excuse the "gallows humour" however given the current pressures on academic staffing I fear we might encounter a spate of non-lethal lab accidents, library shelf collapses and accidental inoculations.  Point taken tho' - it's a combination of being different and intellectually capable that makes for popularity.  That wasn't always the way was it?  Our current "popular scientists" seem perhaps to be selected by society for their good looks, charisma and capacity to popularise science more often these days above their capacity for their ground breaking discoveries and insights.