The Trap of Paradigm
Scientist, even the inventive ones, are not always open to new ideas. One of the reasons for this is the constraints put on scientific enquiry by the paradigm prevalent during that time. Paradigms define the relevant problems to be explored, and the solutions which would be seen as relevant. A problem or solution lying outside the paradigm would not be seen as respectable.
For instance, when Antoine Laurent Lavoisier, one of the founders of modern chemistry, demonstrated that air can be separated into its component parts, and suggested that water also was a compound substance, he invited severe criticism from many. One of them was no less than Antoine Baume, the inventor of hydrometer. Baume declared in one of the plenary sessions of the Academy of Sciences:
"It is inadmissible that elements recognised for two thousand years should now be included in the category of compound substances. They have served as the basis for discoveries and theories... We should deprive these theories of all credibility if fire, water, air and earth were no longer to count as elements."
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