One critical challenge in adopting new ideas is the inertia surrounding widely accepted concepts, making it challenging for new
ideas to gain traction in their respective fields. As concepts attain widespread acceptance and recognition within a field, they tend to become embedded in the educational curriculum, textbooks, and collective opinion. This creates a barrier for the acceptance of fresh ideas, as established concepts, having already permeated the public, are not easily forgotten. In the human sciences, for example, theories like Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory have left a mark on the field, with decades of scholarship and clinical application supporting their enduring presence. The inertia of these established ideas makes it difficult for alternative or competing perspectives to be accepted, studied, and popularized. Moreover, the accumulation of proof and in-depth analysis serves as a further barrier to adopting fresh ideas. Widely accepted concepts accumulate a substantial amount of evidence, research, and scholarly discourse that reinforces their credibility and legitimacy. This fortifies their position in their respective fields but also makes them so widely accepted that they can almost become facts in people’s minds, even when having the word theory attached to it. For example when thinking of the creation of the universe, most would think of the big bang with no hesitation, despite it being a theory. Widely accepted theories become a default for most. When introducing a new perspective that contradicts deeply entrenched beliefs, it often means re-starting the process of evidence-gathering and analysis from scratch. This demanding task can be a discouraging factor in the adoption of innovative ideas. In the field of economics, for example, established theories like the efficient market hypothesis have been studied for decades. Challenging these theories with fresh approaches requires assembling a new body of evidence, conducting more experiments, and persuading the academic community of their validity. This often also costs lots of money as the government has to spend millions on research and development every year. Sometimes, theorists may not have the ability to gather new evidence and conduct more experiments. Another issue is the line between opinions and facts, because most things that are considered facts, were once opinions. Economics, for example, is a human science that analyzes human interactions, and as time went by, parts of economics became facts, despite it being a relatively subjective field. For example, the fact that demand affects supply is a fact, and has always been a fact, however. it was disputed in the early stages of economics becoming an established field. So this begs the question of whether or not all subjective fields of study, may one day become objective. There may be one singular truth that has not been discovered yet, whether the Keynesian or classical model of an economy is the better model is subjective, however, it may be that one of the two is an objectively better model, however, it has not been discovered yet. All things that are known have always existed and have always been the truth, humans just could not see this truth due to a number of obstacles preventing them, such as a lack of technology. This makes new ideas even harder to adopt because if a theory is on the pathway to becoming objective, then a new theory disproving it, is a new obstacle preventing humans from seeing the truth. Overall, the inertia of widely accepted ideas, coupled with the accumulation of evidence and the challenge of disproving established notions, collectively contribute to the difficulty of adopting fresh ideas within areas of knowledge. These barriers pose a considerable challenge to those seeking to introduce innovation and new perspectives to grow as a society.
Comments