

Are Inventions Inevitable? A Note on Social Evolution (1922) [pdf] - prostoalex
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2142320

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mlinksva
Interesting read. Inevitable if preconditions are in place, unknowable in
advance, and not dependent upon single inventor. Based largely on a list of
148 inventions with multiple independent inventors more or less at the same
time.

[http://www.jstor.org/stable/985546](http://www.jstor.org/stable/985546) is a
closely related 1961 paper by Robert Merton, whose work is mentioned in
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple_discovery)

Would love a pointer to a current literature summary on this question!

