There is something else that is really annoying me about this remark. It kind of suggest that some layman looking form the side line has a 'fresh mind' and an 'original way of thinking'. This is not how I see it however. Someone gave me this analogy once:
Say that you are walking in a forest for pretty much the first time, being some city-bound person, what do you see and discover? I think not all that much, you see trees, bushes, some bugs, some more bushes and so on. Now you are maybe a botanist, or maybe a forester, what do you pick up from the walk? Much, much more. You don't see just trees, you notice the kind of tree, whether it is in good shape, its relation to the location of bushes, the kind of insects and weather there are some larger animals in the neighborhood, etc. etc. The more you know of a particular field, the more you notice about it and thus the better the change that you notice something odd, something improvable.
So, what I'm trying to say is that insights and originality do not arise from a vacuum. Original music is written by people listening and studying huge amounts of music, how else would they know what they do is original?!? Knowledge of the field you are trying to innovate in is essential, crucial really. Any idea that any layman can come up with has already been thought of decades ago by the first scientists of the field.
So you first need to know the rules of the game before you can break them. The times when a laymen can ignorantly find a weakness in any scientific field are long gone.