SELF-TAUGHT tinkerers once drove American innovation, and could do so again, Alec Foege argues. I just wish he had made a better case.
Benjamin Franklin was a well-known experimentalist; George Washington tinkered with crops and designed a novel plough; Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair. Foege finds similar promise in modern tinkerers like Dean Kamen, who built projectors for rock bands in high school, then invented a string of medical devices before turning to the elegant but overhyped Segway. He also points to Australian-born MIT-trained polymath Saul Griffith, who uses new materials to solve environmental problems, and biochemical engineer Jay…
