Another way to put this is that the incentives in academia right now encourage "careerism", for lack of a better term. People have to put so much effort into maintaining their position that the actually big picture goals like research become difficult to do, especially when you have to show progress every quarter and funding is only given out in one to two year increments. Researchers end up playing it safe, because big risky ideas may pay off in five to ten years, but that kind of research is hard to fund on a yearly or even quarterly basis.