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The pioneers in bacteriology and psychoanalysis illustrate the characteristics of scientific innovators who begin investigating problem defined at the time by scientific consensus as beyond the scope of science. Typically, the innovators were practitioners who were involved in research and academic teaching as a side-line, or "role hybrids," that is, theoretical scientists who were driven by personal or professional reasons to solve practical problems. With the spread of professionalization, other fields may gain their innovations from such sources.
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Joseph Ben‐David (1960) studied this question.
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