Alright, I'll elaborate. My dissertation was based on a highly speculative new treatment, in a field where mathematical models are not widely used. One of the

Alright, I'll elaborate. My dissertation was based on a highly speculative new treatment, in a field where mathematical models are not widely used. One of the potential answers was "Yes, this should entirely change the course of care for a particular disease." My current advisee's first paper is, essentially, "Has the field been doing this wrong this whole time?" Note that I publish regularly in the good society level journals in my field, and on occasion in the splashier journals, got a tenure track job at an R1 university, and have enough grant funding to cover my lab. Also, your assertion that "incremental" research can't change the research status quo is flawed.