Knowledge may be acquired by many means of which one of them is experience, and while experience can be a great and wonderful teacher, it isn’t necessarily the best way and certainly isn't the only way to acquire knowledge. In fact, a significant amount of knowledge that we acquire each and every year comes from school, mentors, fellow associates, and documents in any of its many forms. This knowledge that we draw upon can be numerous generations old, or of more recent vintage, and all of this knowledge is necessary for the world to continue to advance and to become a better place. That is to say, it is because of the hard work and discoveries that we have from previous great men and women that we are able to build upon that base and to create even more of worth for our fellow members of mankind and to learn from history of our errors. This then signifies that knowledge and the passing on of it, is fundamentally a gift that is of great service to our communities and country.
Because knowledge is so important it certainly makes sense to state that those that are selfish in their discoveries and wishing to keep such special knowledge that they have developed to themselves, are doing a grand disservice to mankind, whereas those that take their knowledge and collaborate and pass on this information to others, understanding that a team working together, brick by brick, from one generation to the next, are brightening and making the world a better place. This signifies that scientific papers, research, conferences of like-minded people, active listening, and good communication, are absolutely essential for the continual improvement of not only people in your community, your State, your country, but also the world at large.
While it is intriguing when two disparate groups are able to essential discover another scientific truth thru independent paths, there are unfortunately far more groups that come to an impasse, for lack of knowledge of things that have previously already been discovered, but unfortunately for these people, they are blithely unaware of. That is why in this era of the worldwide web, so much of our scientific knowledge, should be readily available throughout the world, and thereby like the editors of Wikipedia, that allows worldwide contribution from all, or open source code that allows others to modify the code or to enhance it, changes and improvement can be made "on the fly".
The importance of knowledge being passed successively from one generation to the next, can be viewed as understanding that if each generation had to count on re-discovering the things that other great scientists have discovered, we would, almost at best, barely be able to tread water, which is why we have had epochs such as the "dark ages" to which mankind in a lot of respects, lost the continuity and knowledge of the previous age and regressed in their growth and development to the detriment of living standards, freedom, happiness, and health.
The thing about knowledge is everything of worth that you have learned and understood, if you are unable to pass that knowledge onto either your family, friends, or associates in some way, form, or manner, than that knowledge dies within you and will therefore have to be re-discovered or unearthed by someone else, whereas all that you pass on to your progeny or associates will continue to live on in the minds and ideas of generations of today and hopefully for generations yet unborn. To be selfish with your knowledge is to die onto yourself, whereas to be selfless is to never taste death because your knowledge lives on and is transported through the wisdom of others.