Even if each individual researcher mostly cares about getting publications, the way to get published is to do work that other researchers think is interesting a

Even if each individual researcher mostly cares about getting publications, the way to get published is to do work that other researchers think is interesting and important. Perhaps the mechanism by which a paper like this can change a field is not by causing a particular person to reevaluate their own research agenda, but by changing the opinion of reviewers (who were not necessarily invested in that agenda to begin with).