Importance of a Framework

I heard a fascinating radio program this morning on the way to work by an academic paleontologist.
He was describing the archaeologists who were finding fossils in Elgin near Aberdeen, way back on the 1830s. At one point he said something which to me was quite riveting...that even if  they had  found a tiny piece of a dinosaur bone, they couldn't have recognised it, as they had no framework or language reference within which to place it, as it was pre the major discoveries which lead to our understandings about the lives and time of the dinosaurs.

To me this is such an important statement..not so much about the understanding of 'old bones', but about the way in which we perceive the world. Without the necessary framework or template , it is very hard to see life in brand new terms. It reminded me a lot of our current times, when those people who have embraced the concept of living in times of change, find it far easier to see the symptoms and signs of the change, even when quite subtle ....and yet  those who live  with the framework of 'no change', miss things which to me are staring us in the face.

I guess it has always been like this through the centuries when small groupings forefront new arisings and understandings, like early astronomers such as Galileo,  flying in the face of the Christian view of the Creation and facing the wrath of the old thinkers!