“In the history of science there is always a tension between revolutionaries and conservatives, between those who build grand castles in the air and those who prefer to lay one brick at a time on solid ground.” -Freeman Dyson
I keep looking for these revolutionaries, because all I seem to find are people who rather we tow the party line, study popular theories and methods that will win grants, are more busywork than difficult since they are doable but are tractable and easily fundable with low risk since they are but minor adjusting of the skirt of the already established theory.
To me the question is, how can we structure things so the incentives aren't biased so strongly towards what keeps bureaucracies happy, and so there's greater incentives for more innovative work? The current system seems to make it very difficult for anyone to do innovative work.
The problem is doing so without funding crackpots that look identical to revolutionaries from the outside.