Comfort zone

Information and knowledge are power. However people do not necessarily embrace it. For example there are toothbrushes made out of bamboo sticks, plastic and even powered by electricity. But availability does not necessarily translate to utilization. People feel very comfortable in their own old ways and don’t feel a need or even feel threatened to move to an arena they are not familiar with or not in control. Indians still use fingers to eat and Chinese use chopsticks to cook. This kind of holding onto the culture, may be personal or little broader is also prevalent in science. Protocols and machines are getting upgraded constantly which can give new information or different information when implemented by the researchers. However, that sometimes pushes people to their discomfort zone and hence they resist, become calcitrant or even become defensive which might lead to offensive and altercation.
All over the world, we see principal investigators having a tendency to hire researchers who speak his or her native language. That may not be biased in nature but an outcome for choosing to be in the comfort zone to interact as language and culture barriers play major roles in science too.