Science has an impressive track record of originality. It may seem like no new philosophical ideas are being discovered, but that’s not true — they’re just comparatively smaller discoveries than those in the sciences.
This may be due to the fact that we are much more blind in the sciences than we are in philosophy. I suspect that’s because the entire web of possible knowledge in philosophy is likely smaller than the totality of possible knowledge in the natural sciences. Additionally, humans have only been doing good science for a few centuries, whereas we’ve been doing philosophy for millennia. Also, science is hard and we’re dumbasses.
But just because most of us don’t make original contributions to science or philosophy doesn’t mean we aren’t creating anything original.
As a species, we’re constantly developing new tools, languages, modes of thought, inventions, and most importantly, art.
Art is our crowning evolutionary achievement as far as I’m concerned.
In art, originality is easy to come by.
While there are strict rules in science and philosophy, there are no rules in art.
I could record a random tune in 30 seconds and it could be completely original. In fact, I just did!
But even though originality may be much more easily achieved in the arts, it’s rare to come up with an entirely new style or genre. People who do this are called pioneers, and they are rightly celebrated.
For example, Martha Graham pioneered an entirely new school of movement: modern dance. There were free-form dancers before her, but she transformed the conception of dance itself. She created an entirely new section on the tapestry of artistic movement. Before her, we believed the tapestry to be only so big, but she showed us all that it was wider than we had previously imagined.

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