[beagle3]

I think the only source of potential arrogance is unfamiliarity with prior and ongoing work. My experience is that people often comes up, on their own, with brilliant ideas that have already been explored. A lot of my uni time was a roller coaster of "wow, I have this amazing idea" (talk to someone in the field), "bummer, they beat me to it by random (1,200) years".

Of course being around smart people helps think out, crystalize and polish ideas. But many people do have insights on their own, some completely new even in 200 year old fields.