What an excellent post. I entirely agree. In almost all areas, the ruling paradigm is sacrosanct. Careers, salaries, reputations, the status quo, all of this and more serves to stifle so many fesh approaches and ideas, and in many instances, actively supress them. Even cursory research in the archeological field reveals many cases of anomalies that question the prevailing framework being 'killed'. so to speak, and brave and ground breaking researches have had their careers ruined for their heresy. It's always the same, the pioneers have to work alone, facing ridicule and often outright hostility, and the greatest irony is that, in so many cases they are eventually proved right and their ideas are adopted. Science, in many, but not all cases, is no longer a brave and revolutionary force. If something does not fit it's received criteria, it is dismissed out of hand.