I agree with your observations. One of the biggest problem is fragmentation. People used to be "philosophers of the natural science", now they are experts in "

I agree with your observations. One of the biggest problem is fragmentation. People used to be "philosophers of the natural science", now they are experts in "implementations of quantum algorithms with cold ions". So its unlikely to get so many good people in one place (as the number of fields is astonishingly high) and to get progress between/outside of fields (many fields are a bit historical/arbitrary) - as many scientist (even eminent) lack of even basis knowledge in other sciences (or even - subfields). So things requiring bigger picture may be already out of scope. When it comes to switching fields or dying - did you read: http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/07/will-our-understanding-of-math.html http://blog.computationalcomplexity.org/2015/07/will-our-und... ?