&gt; Its almost as if everyone&#x27;s work is built upon the work of those before them and wouldn&#x27;t be possible otherwise. Does that invalidate their achievement?<p>I think that &quot;x wouldn&#x27;t have happened without y&quot; statements in questions of scientific discovery are almost always false, at least partially for this reason.<p>In some ways it does invalidate their achievement, to the extent that they are portrayed as being the sole agent of radical change when, in all likelihood, they are just the person who got there first (and often by a slim margin, as the history of scientific priority disputes shows).