Michael Polyani is quoted as making a comparison to guilds and scientists by Richard Rhodes in his book on the Atom Bomb. You become a scientist when other scie

Michael Polyani is quoted as making a comparison to guilds and scientists by Richard Rhodes in his book on the Atom Bomb. You become a scientist when other scientists accept you as a scientist. The publication side of things is a bit of a formalism, the critical point is acceptance into the craft. A quite a-scientific approach in some ways. That was of course in a prior age. Last century, in the dawn of Particle Physics, but I think he wrote of science in general in that time, not just Physicists.