To what extent can past knowledge influence the acquisition or production of new knowledge?

 'Past knowledge' is what we call experience. And it is no stretch to say that our 'experience' has greatly influenced our acquisition or production of new knowledge. Several instances, let's say findings in sciences, greatly relied on the foundations built by previous scientists' findings and such. One can even go far as to say that there will be no acquisition or production of new knowledge if there is no past knowledge. This is universal because you can only explain what the new knowledge is with your past knowledge. 

Even the first human, let's say, who only had his or her five senses and nothing else acquired knowledge that rock was grey with his sense of sight, that it was sharp through his sense of feel, etc. This could only be acquired because he knew that what he touched was unique to each type of object he touched from his past experiences. 

Our experiences also influence our method of thinking and perceiving things in different ways. A few millennia ago, we perceived everything to be made up of earth, air, fire, and water. However, today we have slowly built up the atomic theory based on our past knowledge and learned that even things such as positrons and photons exist now. Our method of acquisition and production of knowledge will constantly keep evolving as we acquire more knowledge.