By academic credentials, Mullis was a 3rd rate scientist. Then he had that one brilliant invention. Then he went back to being almost a crackpot.
For comparison, the inventor of the fundamentals of the now famous mRNA vaccine technology, Katalin Karikó, was 2nd rate scientist by academic credentials. Could not get tenured permanent position, but was able to stay employed in the normal workforce at a university.
Of course, by scientific importance they are both first rate scientists, because of their important inventions.
I recall a quote by an introspective and humble Nobel winner (I think it was one of the guys who discovered/verified the cosmic microwave background radiation) that was basically "They don't give Nobels for being the best scientist, they give it for the most important discoveries." He was basically saying he happened to be at the right place at the right time (working on a team that had access to the proper telescopes), and that he was no Einstein.
The fact that Mullis made a huge discovery and is also a third rate scientist and crackpot are not mutually exclusive.
If he was a third rate chemists there's no way he would invent PCR, even if it seems obvious after the fact and with current automation. He wasn't just at the right place at the right time; unless you want to credit it to aliens that he claims to have met.
amusingly, Mullis got high on LSD while at Berkeley, went to Golden Gate Park, and wrote a paper about universal time reversal that got published (single author!) in Nature. Boy, publishing was a lot easier then.
Thanks, I always have a hard time finding it. Ah- it's only a letter, not a full publication. To be honest I can't really tell if it's clever or stating the obvious (I'm a biologist/computer scientist).
By academic credentials, Mullis was a 3rd rate scientist. Then he had that one brilliant invention. Then he went back to being almost a crackpot.
For comparison, the inventor of the fundamentals of the now famous mRNA vaccine technology, Katalin Karikó, was 2nd rate scientist by academic credentials. Could not get tenured permanent position, but was able to stay employed in the normal workforce at a university.
Of course, by scientific importance they are both first rate scientists, because of their important inventions.