To play the devil's advocate, does the culture of openness have the potential for diluting intellectual advancement? On the one hand, there is a greater cross flow of ideas, so the integration of ideas from disparate disciplines will happen much more. However, the cross flow means there is less concerted effort on certain issues and there is less incentive to focus on unpopular but important problems. To use an evolutionary metaphor, the greatest variety of unique species emerge in isolated environments, such as Australia.
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To play the devil's advocate, does the culture of openness have the potential for diluting intellectual advancement? On the one hand, there is a greater cross flow of ideas, so the integration of ideas from disparate disciplines will happen much more. However, the cross flow means there is less concerted effort on certain issues and there is less incentive to focus on unpopular but important problems. To use an evolutionary metaphor, the greatest variety of unique species emerge in isolated environments, such as Australia.