[metachor]

This reminds me of a great book, "Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation", by Lave and Wegner (an anthropologist and a computer scientist). This book deals with how newcomers to a community of practice interact with core practitioners to learn the central knowledge/beliefs of that community. As newcomers move from the periphery to the center of practice, their criticisms to the body of central knowledge become more acceptable to the community as a whole. This of course causes the "center" of the community to shift over time as new members cycle in to a community and old members exit.