Nothing is more exciting than fresh ideas, so why are areas of knowledge often so slow to adopt them? discuss with reference to the human sciences and one other area of knowledge.

In our pursuit of knowledge, fresh ideas have always played a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of the world, as they offer new perspectives, challenge what we currently believe, and propel us forward. The reluctance or speed at which people adopt fresh ideas is dependent on the area of knowledge in which these ideas are being considered. As I study both human sciences (economics) and natural sciences (chemistry), I have been told that knowledge in the natural sciences is more widely accepted than knowledge in the human sciences. Human sciences is a branch of studies focusing on humanities' social, cultural, and biological aspects. From my perspective, knowledge in the human sciences focuses on the study of human behavior and is built on subjectivity. People generally follow pre-established beliefs and theories, which require more time to adapt to fresh ideas that challenge their preconceptions. In contrast, knowledge in the natural sciences is more highly regarded and easily replicable through experimental trials, thus making fresh ideas in this area of knowledge more easily proven and adopted by society. Therefore, the natural sciences are quicker to adopt fresh ideas to a greater extent because they can be proven through scientific methodology, but the human sciences are slower to adopt new ideas because of their subjective nature and people following various perspectives. Considering the different elements in the question, ‘exciting’ refers to enthusiasm and eagerness, while ’slow,’ in this context, refers to a fresh idea taking more time relative to other areas of knowledge to be adopted. Both of these terms are fairly subjective and vary for each person—what constitutes exciting or slow to one may not to another. Moreover, ‘adopt’ refers to accepting or starting to use something new. This is important because it allows us to understand the boundaries of the question. However, answering the question with regard to why people are slow to adopt exciting fresh ideas is challenging because it assumes that everyone follows the same perception of what they constitute as ‘slow’ and ‘exciting.’

 

Knowledge in the natural sciences is proven through scientific methodology with concrete results that are easily replicable and repeatable. This usually makes fresh ideas within the natural sciences to be quickly adopted. For example, the discovery, creation, and distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine occurred within approximately a year. This is extremely fast relative to the average time required for vaccines to be made, 10-15 years (Johns Hopkins University & Medicine, n.d.), and much faster than the average time to accept a new idea in clinical practice, which is 17 years (Pearson, 2015). The COVID-19 vaccine was developed in early 2020 after the rise of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although the World Health Organization estimated that a COVID-19 vaccine would not be developed until 18 months (Marsh, 2021), the high demand for the vaccine led scientists to develop a safe and effective vaccine quickly in 11 months. One of the most prominent vaccines developed was from Pfizer and BioNTech, which announced that they had developed a vaccine with a 95% success rate in November 2020. After the release of their scientific results, the UK authorized the distribution of this vaccine in December 2020, just nine months after it was declared a global pandemic on March 11, 2020 (Marsh, 2021). After this, more countries continued to accept this ‘fresh idea’ because of the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and it was one of the only prevention methods to counteract contracting the disease. Eventually, the Pfizer and BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine was FDA-approved on August 23, 2021 (FDA, 2021), and 70.6% of the global population has received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine (Our World in Data, n.d.). However, it can also be argued that the use of COVID-19 vaccines may not be ‘quickly accepted’ but rather ‘quickly adopted’ due to the constraints of not getting vaccinated. Many countries around the world set regulations that 3 required citizens to get vaccinated, or else they wouldn’t be allowed to work or eat in restaurants, which influenced many people to ‘adopt’ this ‘fresh idea.’

 

However, in some areas of natural science, such as physics, new ideas are slower to be adopted. This is because of the high costs associated with testing theories. This has significantly stalled the production and adoption of new knowledge in this field. Sabine Hossenfelder, a physicist, proposed that the foundations of physics haven’t seen significant progress since the 1970s, with no major discoveries being made after the standard model of particle physics was completed (Hossenfelder, 2020). She believes that although the core understanding of physics has advanced, there haven’t been sufficient technological advances to prove new theories by experimentation, leading to stagnation in discoveries being made in physics. The costs and technology required to run experiments to foster discoveries and prove theories result in a lack of progress, as scientists can’t afford to run experiments (Hossenfelder, 2020). Hence, the financial limitations restrict scientists from discovering and adopting “fresh ideas” because it's challenging for them to prove their validity as they are unable to conduct experiments due to the costs associated with them.

Furthermore, knowledge in human sciences is generally subjective, so it often requires lots of time for people to adapt to new perspectives and discoveries of knowledge. Because human behavior is multifaceted and is influenced by cultural, social, and psychological factors, it is challenging to devise theories and frameworks that people would agree with without disrupting existing paradigms; thus, people are slow to adopt fresh ideas in the human sciences. For example, economics is primarily built upon normative statements—reliant on perspectives, values, and beliefs. The origin of economics is based on Adam Smith’s laissez-faire theory in the 4 1700s through his books The Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. His belief was that economies operate best without government intervention, and ‘the invisible hand’—a metaphor that means everything will sort out on its own—would naturally lead to the efficient allocation of resources (Majaski, 2023). This built the foundation of one of the two main economic perspectives we follow nowadays—Neo-Classical economics. At the time, people only followed the Neo-Classical economic theory until the 20th century when John Maynard Keynes established what is known as Keynesian economics. Keynesian economics follows the theory that government intervention is necessary for economies, especially to lift one out of a recession (Welna, 2011). This theory was adopted after the great depression in the 1900s and directly contradicts the Neo-Classical ideology as Keynesian economics believed that the government should allocate resources into an economy to stimulate economic activity. This wasn’t widely accepted at the time when it was introduced because it was a paradigm shift that contradicted the preconceptions of how people believed economics functioned. This led to the establishment of the Monetarist theory, which reinforced the Neo-Classical beliefs as people revolted against Keynesian economics. Ever since the introduction of Keynesian economics, there has been lots of discussion and studies on whether Keynesian or Neo-Classical beliefs are better. However, now, most economies, such as the Hong Kong economy, have gradually adopted a mix of Neo-Classical and Keynesian economics.

 

Contrastingly, geographers quickly adopted the Geographic Information System (GIS) in the field of geography. GIS is a computer system used by geographers that analyzes geographical information by capturing, storing, and displaying data related to the Earth (National Geographic, n.d.). It compares information about people and landscapes, such as income, population density, 5 and soil (National Geographic, n.d.).
 

In the past, geographers relied on traditional methods like aerial photography and manual data collection, but after the discovery of the GIS, geographers quickly adapted it into their data collection methods due to the potential it had to improve their ability to collect geographical data. The GIS was pioneered in the 1960s when Roger Tomlinson developed the first computerized GIS in 1963. However, the technology wasn't commercialized for the public until 1981, but ever since, it has been ubiquitous for all geographers to adopt it worldwide due to its technological advancement and the methods by which knowledge is collected (Esri, n.d.). People were quick to adopt this new knowledge relative to other past geographical discoveries as computers became more advanced and faster in the 1990s, allowing the GIS software to be developed and used not just by geographers but in classrooms and the government as well.

 

To conclude, one can regard that fresh ideas in the human sciences are usually slow to be adopted because the study of human behavior is highly subjective where generalizations are made. Alternatively, knowledge in the natural sciences is replicable and can be proven once discoveries are made, which makes fresh ideas relatively quicker to be adapted compared to human sciences. The factors that determine these differences are connected to the urgency of the situation as well as the methodologies used within each area of knowledge. Overall, we can see that within different areas of knowledge, fresh ideas can be appreciated and used to move knowledge forward to some extent.

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