Be wary of assuming that someone who is knowledgeable, even brilliant, in one field is correct about everything else. Some examples for you:
Issac Newton was a chap who has had a little bit of celebrity in the fields of calculus and physics; you know, a few physical laws named after him, some theorems and standard notation named after him, et cetera. He was also known (though less popularly today) as a big enthusiast of alchemy, which is now widely recognized as complete bunk except by the likes of people who bring you the Flat Earth Society.
Nikola Tesla is well known for his experiments with creation and conduction of electricity. In fact, the three-phase power transmission method employed today in every commerical and residential power grid in the world is based upon his system of alternating current, despite vigorous opposition by Edison. Tesla is almost as well known, however, for some of his more crackpot ideas and claims. While Tesla was a great experimentalist and integrator, his grasp on the actual physical principles of his experiements was often shaky.
Bruce medalist (and overlooked for a Nobel prize awarded to Fowler and Chandrasekshar) astronomer Fred Hoyle made great contributions to astrophysics and cosmology. However, he was noted for his staunch opposition to Big Bang theory long past the point that it was accepted by the astronomy community (due to the discovery of the cosmic microwave background and the cosmic redshift). He also argued against the (now widely accepted) chemical evolution of life, arguing (from no evidence whatsoever) that life began by pansporidia (from viruses falling from space). He made repeated claims that pulsars were signals from other civilizations well after it was widely theorized that they were in fact natural phenomena.
Kary B. Mullis, who was the 1993 Nobel Laureate for Chemistry for is invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) which is used in most DNA matching tests. Mullis, however, has had a long history of bizarre and unfounded speculations, the most notorious of which is his claim that AIDS is not caused by the HIV virus. Although he has a small following on this issue, the vast majority of active researchers in the field of virology think he’s totally off his nut on this. In fact, most chemists regard his discovery/invention of PCR to be about the only viable thing he has ever produced in his career.
And as for Einstein: After a brief but fruitful period of innovation which turned the physics world upside down (or rather, without absolute reference whatsoever) he proceeded to blunder about, seeking a Theory of Everything for the next 30 years without success or conclusion. He considered his addition of a cosmological constant in GR to account for the expansion of the universe a big mistake, even though it now appears that there is in fact reason to believe that the “constant” is an appropriate correction.
Being smart doesn’t always make you right, especially about things in your own field and particularly about subjects outside of it. The problem with many brilliant people is that they get so used to being right (or accepted as being correct) in their own area of expertiese that they believe their own press and become arrogant about their opinions in general, even when their knowledge on the topic is completely unfounded (i.e. Hoyle and the possibility of extraterrestrial civiliziations.)
As for the OP, your neighborman may be an authority in the field he works in (hence, his possession of an extravant amount of tools) and may be knowledgable in areas outside his own field. Whether he is properly considered a genius, much less an innovator whose ideas and experiements will change the world is a matter for future history. Perhaps he is whipping up some device that will turn ordinary garbage into precious jewels, or a pill that wil make everyone happy and handsome, but I wouldn’t go betting the farm on it. It is easy to appear to be brilliant (one of my cow-orkers does it by attending a lot of meetings and repeating the most intelligent comments he hears in other meetings, which becomes obvious to those of us doing the actual work but sounds brilliant to the REMFs who think he’s come up with this stuff all on his own) but a true measure of genius is producing a result that nobody else thought of, and even then, one’s genius may be restricted to the subject at hand rather than assumed of all other opinions and hypotheses.
Stranger
