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Back to the philosophy of science, which we’ll artificially break down into two schools, the incrementalist and the revolutionary. The incrementalist believes that there are memes which are filtering through society which will eventually manifest themselves. If Newton didn’t stand on the shoulders of giants and write down the Calculus, Leibniz would have. Some people are better at collating ideas than others, but if any one genius were hit by a bus tomorrow, then the sciences would continue to advance. The revolutionary theory states that certain geniuses push forward the frontiers single-handedly. If Einstein hadn’t worked out the Lorentz equations, nobody else on Earth would have for a long time to come. (Source)