[marvin]

I disagree almost 100% with this. The most novel scientific ideas are so wild they're almost in crackpot territory. Novel ideas in general are ideas no one has ever explored before. And while most science is incremental, most science is also...not very useful or interesting. I'm sure that scientific funding could be cut 50% without any noticeable negative impact, assuming the right 50% were cut. (That is of course the difficult question, so I'm not literally advocating this).

Conservativism is a very bad trait to have in scientific roles. It's not as bad as being dumb, not being curious or not intensely seeking the truth, but on a system level it will steer the ship in the wrong direction.

Paul Graham recently wrote some essays that explored these ideas in a much clearer and more precise way. To me they were just nagging in the back of my mind for a long time. Recommended reading if you've got a few minutes. http://paulgraham.com/think.html