Scientists and philosophers are exquisitely sensitive to the advantage of ideas that already enjoy broad familiarity. The history of science is a long story about good ideas facing rejection after punishing rejection until enough scientists become acquainted with the concepts, at which point they become law. Max Planck, the theoretical physicist who helped lay the groundwork for quantum theory, said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar
...more
