ABSTRACT
Are we an innovative animal "by nature?" An animal that is an almost painfully slow innovator has suddenly upped the pace almost frenetically. But with both technology and innovation we must stop to ask what we are doing to an animal evolved to deal with small groups and innovative conservatism. Let us return briefly to the primates. From these close relatives we inherited what ethologist Desmond Morris christened "neo-philia"—the love of the novel: a passionate curiosity and innovative capacity. The innovative maverick in the modern world is relatively useless without a hierarchical, efficient organization to put his ideas into practice. The question is whether or not innovative behavior is "natural" to us, or whether it is something that must be artificially stimulated and supported to occur and be effective. Mostly in history or theology or philosophy, or even psychology or anthropology, the "natural" has been whatever the analyst, for his own reasons, wanted to be there.
