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Is there a word to describe the fact for someone to discover a new thing, thanks to the refreshing new point-of-view coming from someone who is not an expert in the domain, or who does not even posess the basic knowledge in this domain?

Just like there is a word to describe the fact to discover something else that what we were searching for (serendipity), is there a word to describe this? If no, then don't hesitate to answer "No" and I'll accept the answer (I'm not searching for workarounds but the exact word expressing the concept instead).

To illustrate it more:

Imagine someone being an expert in a very specific field of science. He knows everything that can be known about this field. But he struggles finding new things or explaining unexplained things, because he is too much influenced by his knowledge and how he sees the problem.

Now imagine another person that is far from an expert in this same field. She is simply interested in it. She puts a bit of effort to come up with an explanation or model of a particular problem, without any mathematical background or formal definitions. She writes it down or tell it out loud to the first person.

Since she had no knowledge in this field, she was not limited by it, and in fact has found an interesting different way of looking at the problem, which now leads the first person to make a new discovery (roughly: publish a paper).

Sample sentence:

The study of WORD, or how findings were made possible thanks to inexperienced people and their new ideas.

(The idea behind this is to search if this phenomenon happens a lot or not, or if any study has been done on this.)

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  • Your word 'serendipity' sprang to my own mind when I saw the header question. Serendipity, in its very nature seems (to me) to imply a possible lack of expertise.
    – Nigel J
    Commented Apr 23, 2018 at 12:45
  • In my question, the researcher is not mandatorily 100% expert in his domain. The novice however must be a novice, i.e. can at most have very basic knowledge in the domain.
    – pawamoy
    Commented Apr 23, 2018 at 13:12
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    I suggest you add the tag: 'phrases' AND provide a sample sentence or 2 please.
    – lbf
    Commented Apr 23, 2018 at 14:06
  • Would unbiased innovation work in this case? google.com/…
    – Bread
    Commented Apr 23, 2018 at 21:48

1 Answer 1

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I don't know of a word for this, but there is a very old idiom.
"Out of the mouths of babes". Originally from The Old Testament;- "Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings", later modified to "Out of the mouths of babes, oft times comes gems".
[https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/the+mouths+of+babes]
"(saying) used when a small child has just said something that seems very wise or clever: It was my daughter who told me I should enjoy life more. She’s only four years old, but out of the mouths of babes."

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