In any field of endeavor it is impossible to make a significant contribution without first being strongly influenced by past achievements within that field Write a response in which you discuss the extent to which you agree or disagree with the statement

In prompt mentioned, the author averts that the past achievements in a field strongly influence succesor for significant contribution. However, I mostly agree with the issues for two reasons.
Firstly, we can see the implication in the field of science and innovation. Throughout the history, scientists, researchers, and scholars are looking for the inherited rules in our universe, body, and philosophy. It is the grim tenacity of these of people which eventually crafted the pathway of today's development in science and technology. Whenever we look back any ceratin achievement, we can see that the person or group responsible for the achievement is surely inspired by the harbinger on that field. For example, in the field of physics, we can see the achievemnt of Albert Einstein's "Theory of Relativity". His work was inspired by the Newton's work. Newton considered the time is constant. He also stated the gravity is the reason why all planets are rotating in constant speed around the Sun. But he didnot explained how gravity works. After 300 year, Einstein inspired by the Newton's work proved his statement wrong that time is constant. He also able to explain how gravity works.
Secondly, without the constant urge of knowing and gaining beyond than our predesecor, the development of the current civilization would not be possible. Research showed that a number of achievers when surveyed, said that they are somewhat inspired by the forrunners which theey idolized. It is their work, persistance, helped us to gain urge for achieving more.
Perhaps, some may argue that many of the achievements in history were accidental and there were nosignificant past achievements in that field. It can be true that, many of the breakthroughs occured accidentaly. But these case can be termed as outliers or exceptional. It will not be logical to generalizing these outliers. For instance, the innovation of Penecelium.
So, from reasons mentioned above, I mostly agree with the prompt.