There are lots of problems with the Mozart analogy. For one, Mozart was trained by his Father. His education in music began at a very young age (which is comm

There are lots of problems with the Mozart analogy. For one, Mozart was trained by his Father. His education in music began at a very young age (which is common among many if not most of the highly successful classical concert musicians in the world). For another, despite the fact that Mozart's music was creative (I've loved every Mozart piece I've ever heard performed well and most of those that haven't), from a superficial perspective many of them are also remarkably similar. If you aren't ready to appreciate subtle differences you aren't ready to appreciate Mozart for many of the reasons his music remained popular for 200 years after his death. Which brings me to the next point, which is that he talks about Mozart's music existing in a sort of historical vacuum, and doesn't bother to compare Mozart's work to the work of his contemporaries [1]. Most of his contemporaries have been forgotten by the mainstream, for various reasons, but while they were alive they still produced a lot of music. Finally, while there is creativity in science and one can take a scientific approach to creating (or "discovering") music, it's difficult to argue that the importance of scientific rigor is not more important in a paper about Algorithms for Mesh Analysis than in a Piano Concerto in Eb Major. [1] Wikipedia lists 64 composers in Mozart's era: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Classical_era_composers#Late_Classical_era_composers_.28born_1750-1770.29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Classical_era_composers...