I now suspect that any body of work will eventually be misunderstood if it attracts attention long enough for the context in which it is read to be markedly different from the context in which it was first presented.
– Daniel Kahneman
3 thoughts on “Re: The Sociology of Idea Propagation”
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The Pythagorean theorem? Galois theory?
What is the source for this quote?
It’s from an article by Kahneman in one of the most recent issues of American Psychologist (a journal of the American Psychological Association), in which Kahneman discusses his collaboration with Amos Tversky, including how their work was received in different scientific fields and how the perception of their work changed over time as it became widely known. I don’t remember exactly but I think the quote appears around page 725. I don’t think it’s available online.