Physics, in the framework of progress, is concerned with the elaboration and testing of various hypotheses in its particular field. These hypotheses should lead to a gradual simplification of procedures. A deeper understanding of nature will inevitably lead to more basic knowledge and thereby to a simplification of procedures. If it doesn't, the hypothesis should be looked at with a wary eye.
Specialization is the archenemy of the discovery of more basic knowledge.
We specialize too deeply in one field only and thereby exclude any broader look at phenomena from the very beginning. By specialization, we limit our field of vision, so to say. The recent discovery of the phenomenon of cold fusion is an excellent illustration of this. The phenomenon, which is undoubtedly of an atomic nature, be it fusion or fission or another process not yet understood, was discovered almost by accident and not by a physicist, but by a team of chemists. To understand the phenomenon, it will be necessary to integrate, not to separate, the fields of knowledge of chemistry and physics, to gain a broad understanding of the principles underlying both these fields.