I'd have to agree with this thesis to some degree. I agree with Colinsmum that one pretty much knows the trajectory in ones mid 20s. Eminent people will begin making contributions in their teens.
This is my view of the academic track from my own experiences and those of my friends.
First, most students work for professors doing grunt work for the professors. A student who liked to go off on their own and look at stuff that interests them is not going to advance the professors' work. A professor is going to find students who will work for him.
Second, really far out ideas and methods are not a sure bet nor will they get funding. University admins want the bigger, surer bets to get money for burden. A prof who goes after risky stuff with low payoffs will not get as much support as the prof going after bigger, surer projects.
Third, a prof wants to be cited. Doing quirky stuff is not going to get you cited in the next 5 years because it is not mainstream. I've seen this first hand on several occasions where a prof could be handed state of the art tools to do ground breaking analysis and they backed off because, "no one will be able to reproduce my work for some time."
Fourth, in the soft fields like Literature and History, stuff like Social Justice has to be included or at least spoken to. This is conformity and it turns many people off even if they agree with it. Global Warming is another example. Dark Matter is another example. Weapons Research is another example.
Fifth, much of science today is really about keeping stuff filed and not breaking new ground. Philology is fine, but when a young or aggressive personality comes along, the philologist will be the first to complain about their papers getting scattered.
Sixth, private industry is doing a lot of very interesting things that require high creativity and tolerance of chaos. This tends to draw those who are creative due to the interesting nature of the work. Why get a PHD when you can be at the leading edge of your field every day and not have to deal with publishing and petty politics? For me, this is the clincher. I find most professors to be 10-15 years behind the curve in my chosen field with no clue as to how real work gets done. Talking to them is like talking to a mannequin.
Seventh, there are some very nasty people with tenure. They go out of their way to target people they do not like or are just are weird. It runs the gamut from sexual predation, psychological games, to outright intellectual bullying.
Real creative science will always be done on the margin on one's own time. There is some very interesting work being done in a number of fields and with the web, they are more than willing to blog about it. There is big, expensive science - but for the most part, there are fundamental things that can be done on a shoestring.
