This exclusion of most of us from the mode of thought which is habitually said to be the characteristic achievement of the modern age is bound to be experienced as a wound given to our intellectual self-esteem. The prevailing consensus in a discipline is usually wrong, because new discoveries will overtake it. The consensus often delays those discoveries, by inertia if not by outright opposition. As a result, the revolutionary discoveries often come from outsiders, not considered to be experts.
Scientists never learn from history.
With these quotes in mind, let us consider some of the impediments to problem solving in contemporary science. Calder already mentions the insidious reliance on consensus. The organization of science into large programs, and 2. The requirement by funding agencies that research follow identifiable lines judged by peer review. In an important sense, Trilling's observation forms a psychological subtext for all three impediments, especially when one realizes that humanists and historians are not alone in the pain of incomprehension.