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You don't acquire it by learning or teaching about it. You don't acquire it from literature or lectures. You acquire it by being forced to do it. It requires wrestling with the problem domain.

And as you said, pointing to literature just "addresses" a topic. Obtaining it is a different matter altogether.

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I get what you're saying but I think what you're describing is more of a temperament more than anything else. Some people, inside and outside academia, have a kind of "root causes" or "first principles" temperament. Others are more inclined to build incrementally on existing knowledge, and less inclined to revisit the foundations.

I think you're right that lots of people with tons of training, expertise, or experience are (sometimes very disappointingly) disinclined to engage in first-principles thinking. But I would expect most academicians to at least know what it is.

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