The “market” for ideas is at least somewhat efficient: most simple, obvious and correct things get thought of fairly quickly after it’s possible to think them.
This may be tautological depending on how you define your terms (if people don’t think of an idea quickly after it’s possible to do so, it wasn’t obvious.)
If defined in such a way that it could possibly be false, of course, it very much begs further evidence.
The most compelling example I’m familiar with is the large number of mathematical breakthroughs that are made nearly simultaneously by multiple people. See e.g. here:
Merton believed that it is multiple discoveries, rather than unique ones, that represent the common pattern in science.
This is certainly sometimes the case. On the other hand, while it often happens in heavily competitive fields where people are employed all around the world for full time research, it may be rather different when it comes to producing ideas or answering questions where nobody is being employed to address them at all, and anyone who does so is doing it on their own initiative.
This may be tautological depending on how you define your terms (if people don’t think of an idea quickly after it’s possible to do so, it wasn’t obvious.)
If defined in such a way that it could possibly be false, of course, it very much begs further evidence.
The most compelling example I’m familiar with is the large number of mathematical breakthroughs that are made nearly simultaneously by multiple people. See e.g. here:
This is certainly sometimes the case. On the other hand, while it often happens in heavily competitive fields where people are employed all around the world for full time research, it may be rather different when it comes to producing ideas or answering questions where nobody is being employed to address them at all, and anyone who does so is doing it on their own initiative.