The big idea: what’s the secret of innovation?

Illustration: Elia Barbieri/The Guardian

There’s a scene in The Simpsons in which Homer’s half-brother Herb unveils his new invention – a machine for translating baby talk – and Homer tells him: “People are afraid of new things. You should have taken an existing product and put a clock in it.”

Thus, in one offhand remark, did America’s favourite animated buffoon distil the message of an expanding body of scientific research: human beings do not like too much novelty. The innovations that take off combine a lot of familiarity with a little bit of new.