This is why, in more than 1000 posts on my own blog, I've said almost nothing that is original. Most of my posts instead summarize what other experts have said, in an effort to bring myself and my readers up to the level of the current debate on a subject before we try to make new contributions to it.

Foundational knowledge is more vital in the hard sciences than in psychology, which confronts you immediately with questions about what is the foundation. You have to make at least a tentative decision about which framework you're going to get up to speed on. This requires doing some original (not necessarily novel) thinking from the start, unless the (unrealistic) plan is to thoroughly learn each of the competing frameworks. Also, in the softer fields, it's possible to contribute precisely on account of one's ignorance of what went before, too much knowledge of existing theories' assumptions sometimes standing in the way of real progress.