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STUDY: The Act Of Creation
JOURNAL: Picador Press, 1969
AUTHORS: Arthur Koestler
ABSTRACT: "One of our conspicuous handicaps is the conservatism of the scientific mind in its corporate aspect. The collective matrix of a science at a given time is determined by a kind of establishment, which includes universities, learned societies, and, more recently, the editorial offices of technical journals and the glossy magazines and newspapers. Like other establishments, they are consciously or unconsciously bent on preserving the status quo -partly because unorthodox innovations are a threat to their authority, but also because of the deeper fear that their laboriously erected intellectual edifice might collapse under the impact. Corporate orthodoxy has been the curse of genius from Aristarchus to Galileo, to Harvey, Darwin, and Freud; throughout the centuries its phalanxes have sturdily defended habit against originality. "