"Teach Your Children to Question Whatever They are taught". Some of the
greatest breakthroughs in all fields, in all facets took place due to the
questioning of conventional and accepted wisdom, for example: the
heliocentricity of the solar system.
Accepted Wisdom is correct in mose cases and can be expreimented over and
over again for their validity. And in a lot of cases, Accepted wisdom goes a
long way to elucidate how the human milieu and the extant nature works, for
example: Newton's Laws to explain how objects move or why tides are higher
when the moon is visible. In fact, it is the universal infalliblity of
conventional wisdom which has led to more facts, and thus a better
understanding of our surroundings
However, as mentioned in the opening paragraph, some of humanity's greatest
breakthorughs were achieved simply because some people had the audacity to
question what was seemingly incontrovertible. These people, through
curiosity, deidcation and talent have not only challenged what was
universally accepted, but rather have gone through great lengths to define
the limits of conventional wisdom, concommitantly bringing about new data
and theories about nature and advancing out knowledge bank. These are the
breakthroughs with which humans have advanced the understanding of the world
For example, The Anciet Greeks believed in the geocentricity of the solar
system, and this knowledge has propagated for centuries up till the middle
ages. Then, Galileo and Copernicus, two famous astronomers made a huge
number of observations and calculations. They concluded that it was the
Earth that moved around the sun, not the other way around. Galileo and
Copernicus were both excommunicated by the Catholic church for what was
deemed heresy at that time. Centuries later when more advanced tools were
developed for better solar observation led to the vindication of these men.
Another example is Einstein. Einstein challenged Newton's Laws, proving that
these laws break down at high speeds. Newton's laws were accepted as
universal (and valid at all times). Einstein's work led to the development
of gravity as something that was completely different from what physicists
had previously known and accepted as. Einstein was shunned for his work on
relativity and time dilation. Today, Einstein's work allows us to have a
penetrating understanding of the universe we live in. In fact, Einstein's
work on general relativity allows us to have more accurate GPS systems.
Therefore, in the end. Accepted wisdom allows us to make a better sense of
the world. But it should be understood that even conventional wisom has its
own limitations, and thus need to be challenged to in order refine our
understanding of how our world works.
