Why Is Scientific Progress So Slow?

There are lots of impediments:

Dutch police had already proudly announced they had found more than 47,000 cannabis plants, with an estimated street value of about $7.6million, concealed in a cornfield in the Flevoland province east of Amsterdam.

They mowed down half the plants only to be informed they were the property of Wageningen University and Research Centre, a respected agricultural school.

The field contained a new strain of hemp that researchers hoped could be a sustainable source of fibre, said Simon Vink, a spokesman for the executive board of Wageningen University and Research Centre.