Originality does not mean thinking something that was never thought before; it means

[rmoon]

"The development of mankind from a cave dweller to sophisticated technocrats is a result of progress through the knowledge , ideas , experience of its predecessors but does this fact negates the novel and innovative ideas which flourished during various ages of history?something which is original does not result from a heterogeneous mixture of ideas.
Anything original is always something new , wcich is away from the traditional mores and conventions. Novelty is the flavor of originality. If we through through the annals of history of human development , we would find that many great leaps of mankind was the result of a truth and original idea in its barest form . for example , let us consider the discovery of the phenomenon of gravitation. Newton was the first to say that an apple fell from a tree due to the attraction of Earth, it was an original idea and no existing theories were there to support it. Galileo’s Assertion of sun being the center of the universe was rendered as heretical at that time , which clearly indicates that his idea was original and it was just the opposite of any idea of that time. so we can clearly say that originality is always characterized by something uncommon and unheard of.

We can say that old ideas are put together results in the improvement of the previously existing original notion or thought. The invention of steam engine by james watt was a piece ohf originality but the fastest locomotives of today are the result of putting together old ideas from varios branches of science. The discovery of atom and other subatomic particles ewre original but the invention of atom bomb was derived from conglomeration of old idas of nuclear physics and basic physics. In this way we can say that any original and distinct idea is the foundation upon which many many other seemingly original structures are developed.
If there were no novelty and creativity in generation of ideas then the world today would have saturated and no further progress were possible. The permutation and combination of old ideas to give something new would result in a stagnation in nay field of study . today every branch of knowledge is progressing , which justifies the fact that alongwith with conglomeration of old ideas new innvative thoughts are pumping fuel to the car of progress.
Thus we can say that originality is not the result of old ideas put together in a new covering. Originality in its barest form is distinctive.the various fundamental laws of science , were not a result of ideas put together. Although sometimes various inventions result from previous thoughts and discoveries but the pithor core of it is always original

[wordsmith]

I strongly support both the views in the stated topic.Originality definitely means thinking something that was never thought before but that doesn't annul the fact that when existing ideas are molded and rearranged,the results don't give us something novel.
Research, be it in any field, does the same.New ideas emerge from the existing ones, originality lies in how they are conceived. sometimes they are entirely original too.When we talk about Newton's Law of Gravitation and Mendel's Laws of Inheritance, we can't question their originality at any instance but when we talk about Watson and Crick we have to understand that their original double helical structure of DNA was derived on the lines of various old theories about the structure of the same.
Why just research, lets talk about cooking. It is a basic science and has some very basic rules and principles that everyone has to follow but it does involve putting existing styles in a different way to get exotic results. Altering the ingredients and their proportions has always been the secret of obtaining entirely original recipes by the chefs of the world.
Books, music, movies, acting, painting and dancing, don't they involve copyrights and patents? why? It is because,they have been conceived and thought before but every now and then there are alterations into them, to bring up original ideas which are of course derivatives.
I therefore, bolster this issue in both viewpoints.