Adam Mastroianni identifies the real reason for the lack of scientific progress:

I certainly believe that Nature makes some mysteries easier to untangle than others—it’s easier to study Earth than it is to study Pluto—and some of those mysteries might be unsolvable entirely. But the main limit to scientific inquiry isn’t reality. It’s us.

Indeed.

@miljko That was fun! "the possibility that large swaths of supposed scientific activity have basically become interpretative dance."