I didn't get a chance to hear last year's Caltech commencement speech by Robert Krulwich, and apparently I missed something good. This I gather from Chad Orzel's Worldcon speech, which includes a great comparison due to Krulwich. I can't really do any better than blatantly stealing three slides from Chad's talk (although the whole thing is worth checking out). The point of the comparison is to contrast two competing modes of scientific communication, as embodied by our two heroes.
Admittedly, this stretches the historical narrative a bit in the service of making a point. The divergence between Newton's and Galileo's career's can't be credited solely to their differences in publication styles. Galileo was a troublemaker by nature, while Newton was a good company man. (Although perhaps there is some correlation there with writing styles?) But the punchline remains valid: Newtonian publication remains better for your career. And, implicitly, this hierarchy ...
