204 comments on Innovation in Hard Times?
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Sure tubs aren't made of same materials and operate at much higher voltages. But the principles behind the transistor, controlling & amplifying currents, were already in used in vacuum tubes 50 years before the first solid state transistor. In that sense transistors aren't really novel.
Like biological evolution, technological evolution seems to me to follow a process of selection for successful small variations (mutations) on previous ideas (traits). When viewed in the near term, these micro-scale evolutionary changes don't appear to be very novel. However, I believe that Darwin's finches evolved different beaks (no matter how subtle) because there were ecological niches/food sources (i.e. marketplace opportunities) available for those who evolved ways to tap into them.
When viewed at a macro-scale, a series of seemingly minor evolutionary changes actually creates novel innovations such as single-cellular lifeforms and eventually humans. We share approximately 90% of our genome with rats, 98% with chimpanzees, and 99.9% with other humans. I'd say novelty is in the eye of the beholder (and the spatial and temporal scales at which it is being viewed).