Comment by eviks
1 day ago
Why would you expect anything else? Becoming "a top scientist" doesn't turn you into some non-human intelligent entity without flaws for the rest of your life, it just means you've done some notable scientific work in some areas. And that work doesn't even have to be correct! You could've been a top scientist with later top (or even low) scientists invalidating all your top science work
I agree with you but I think society has a certain bias that way — a saint or genius bias or myth. It extends into science and engineering itself, although I don't think it's limited to that domain either.
What's interesting to me is how some can recognize this in the past but not the present, or think it only applies in certain domains.