Talk:List of autodidacts

History of education
I am going to add a few paragraphs about the percent of the population receiving elementary, secondary and college education. I have references on this form a couple of other projects I'm working on, but because I was not specifically researching education I am going to have to dig through my notes to find all the facts, figures and references. It may take me a week or two.Phmoreno (talk) 13:50, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * I have modified your text to remove repetitive words. This was a list of autodidacts; do you think that your paragraph is relevant to the page? Maybe it would be more appropriate to include it in the autodidactism page. I have not removed it because I think that it brings a good question. Can we really compare contemporary autodidacts with those from the 18th or earlier centuries? --Christophe Krief (talk) 20:02, 30 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Good point. Autodidactism just came to my attention after reading numerous histories of technology.  Unfortunately I did not keep a list of autodidacts.  Also, I did not notice that autodidactism was a wikilink.  A way to handle this is to put a main article link to autodidactism and put the paragraph there.  If it would not be too repetitive, a sentence could be put in the list article just mentioning the change in education with time and link it directly to the pertinent section in autodidactism.

Definition of autodidact
To uphold the "KISS Principle" let's just define an autodidact as someone who does not have a Bachelors, Masters, or Doctoral degree, but has an equivalent Autodidactic Education. Ideaguy3d (talk) 23:44, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

There were several people who are difficult to classify, such as James Watt, whose father was a math teacher. Watt himself an instrument maker, and I do not believe he served an apprenticeship, which I think is why he was opposed by the guild. Anyway, all I know to do with these people is to add them to the list, with qualifiers. Someone with better information is welcome to remove any that have a good reason to. Anyway, this is not my main area of interest. I am just trying to add a few facts that I have come across, along with the references.Phmoreno (talk) 23:04, 30 January 2012 (UTC)
 * Good job... I am particularly interested with architecture. I will extend the list of architects during my spare time.--Christophe Krief (talk) 07:22, 31 January 2012 (UTC)


 * Could we add the definition to the top of this page? I get that it's on the autodidactism page, but it would be handy here. Mseanbrown (talk) 16:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Order
Could we please keep these in alphabetical order, now the page is a mess. (I started sorting them but don't have the time to do more right now.) --Gemena (talk) 11:46, 20 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Agreed. Would it be okay to alphabetize each list? Mseanbrown (talk) 16:20, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Where are the women?
Is being an auto-didact something that only men are? 95.97.140.136 (talk) 20:28, 4 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The article has at least one (Jane Jacobs). You are free to add other such blue wikilinks to this article. Toccata quarta (talk) 22:45, 4 November 2012 (UTC)


 * was misplaced; it should have gone here. Note the discussion in Talk:Autodidacticism and the following section as well.
 * The notion that female autodidacts are systematically (though not necessarily malevolently – male privilege forms powerful blinders) overlooked or unaccounted for makes sense to me. Especially considering non-academic, tradition-related fields such as (to some extent) music or partly private activities such as food preparation, the concept of autodidacticism is getting murky. How many women are competent, professional-level cooks and have learned and discovered many things for themselves without being explicitly taught them, but with the help of written material and pure trial and error? And how many women are publicly recognised as chefs? Even when they do prepare food for a living, such as at a traditional inn? --Florian Blaschke (talk) 16:57, 11 March 2014 (UTC)
 * Then add them. Ideaguy3d (talk) 23:04, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

This site has better representation of women autodidacts. www.autodidactic.com/profiles/profiles

I'm adding them as I have time but please help out if you can. Also, how can you flag an article for being incomplete? This article's lack of women goes beyond what could be explained by underrepresentation in historical information and or traditional fields. Before I began adding them, there were only 4-5 women in a list of 120+. Laureljanej (talk) 04:25, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Add steve jobs, Bill gates, Mark zuckerberg, Gautam adani, and George Smith.
George Smith deciphered the Gilgamesh epic without a university or other college education

We should consider adding those names. All of them are billionaires who are autodictats. Jobs taught himself accounting and calligraphy. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.216.157.192 (talk) 06:06, 7 June 2013 (UTC)

It seems like we need a clear definition. Otherwise this article to get to be a very long list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nightcafe1 (talk • contribs) 14:43, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

Removed John Nash and Elon Musk
John Nash earned a BS and MS from Carnegie Mellon and a PhD from Princeton, all in math. Even if he taught himself some math he hardly rejected formal education and clearly did the opposite by earning a terminal degree. Elon Musk was educated at Penn (in physics and economics). Both of these figures have formal educations in the fields of their notability and therefore are not autodidacts. I have removed them accordingly.69.255.227.75 (talk) 21:36, 16 February 2014 (UTC)

Add Thomas Joannes Stieltjes
Based on his life description, this accomplished Dutch mathematician after whom the Riemann-Stieltjes integral is named seems entirely self-taught. If someone would like to devote the time to check this and confirm, please add him. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Joannes_Stieltjes Boethian (talk) 01:38, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Add Prince
Seeing David Bowie on the list, it would seem that Prince might belong here? Mseanbrown (talk) 16:13, 5 July 2016 (UTC)

Autodidacts
Perhaps Marilyn Manson should be added? He is commonly considered some sort of Satan-worshipping monster by the religious (although he is an athiest, so that makes no sense) but from interviews I have watched, he is quite intelligent and apparently learned to play guitar simply by reading musical books. 2001:8003:4ADD:AF00:119A:7FF2:7930:6E01 (talk) 13:10, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

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Eddie Van Halen
How can a classically trained pianist be classed as an autodidact? Okay, so he may have taught himself how to play guitar, but with all that music theory behind him that is not unusual for any multi-instrumentalist. I would have thought that to qualify as an autodidact a person would have to have no formal education in that particular area of knowledge, ie music. Ningnongtwit (talk) 23:06, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Can we remove Charles Darwin from this list?
with a BA and MA from Cambridge as well as time spent studying medicine at Edinburgh, he does not seem to meet the criteria here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.83.27.167 (talk) 06:01, 1 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Have removed Darwin, the Charles Darwin's education article goes into great depth about his undergraduate studies at Edinburgh and Cambridge on medicine, natural history, geology etc. and the foundation this laid for his later work. Though after he finished his undergraduate studies he was largely self-taught, he didn't do any further formal education, nor hold any university posts etc. — LittleDwangs (talk) 22:23, 10 October 2021 (UTC)

Additional citations for verification.
What information was added that caused this template message on this article? Wikipedia tells us we need more citations, but what information needs the citations? I'm sick & tired of seeing that template message and will spend a few hours doing research to add additional citations... but what information needs citations? Ideaguy3d (talk) 23:15, 7 September 2022 (UTC)


 * Okay, I spent a few hours searching for citation where I found a "citations needed" tag. I added citations and removed a few entries I could not find citations for. I also removed that SUPER ANNOYING "Additional Citations Needed" template message at the top of this article that has been there since 2013. Ideaguy3d (talk) 23:46, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Should "mathematician(s)" have its own subject?
I mean, the rest of the headings are definitely "too large", so we could split it up in a sense. PicoMath (talk) 02:32, 14 April 2024 (UTC)