On the Introduction of New Ideas in Science

Abstract

Some new ideas or other sorts of innovative developments in science are recognized as more important than others, as highly significant, even “revolutionary.” With regard to such ideas or developments, however, we find ­ at least at first look ­ two very different sorts of situations. On the one hand, some of those acknowledgedly important ideas or developments seem to have had recognizable antecedents: the Copernican idea that the earth goes around the sun had been thought of by Aristarchus; the idea that species evolve had been around for a long time before the “Darwinian revolution.” In such cases, it seems that it was not the idea itself that was “new,” but some sort of impact it had. On the other hand, there are “new” ideas (or more general sorts of developments) which do seem ­ again, at least at first glance ­ to have been wholly unanticipated, without recognizable precedent. Paradigm cases usually cited as having these characteristics come from relativity, quantum mechanics, and their cosmological and field-theoretic offshoots. In this essay, I will examine this distinction: its legitimacy, and its basis and consequences to the extent that it is or is not legitimate. I will refer to important innovative ideas which seemprima facieto be of the first type as cases ofregular newnessand those which similarly seem to be of the second as examples ofradical newness.