That argument only works for half of my comment. I argued that people conflate the novel with the legacy, but I would also argue that people conflate the legacy with the novel. People are just as likely to see something very old and say "wow, we are the first people to think of this."

The real culprit is the naturalistic fallacy. Whatever is good must be natural and whatever is bad must be some aberration. It's more complicated than that but I think that explains 75% of it.