This reminds me of Richard Hamming, questioning colleagues of the important questions of their field and whether or not they are working on it. I believe some people choose to go the easier path, for it offers foreseeable rewards whilst some others go for the impossible questions reveling on the easy excuse for failure, that Big Questions are often times hard, and mere mortals cannot expect to overcome it; While most fall in the middle finding the balance of reward and excuse for failure that suits their personalities. Are you tackling the Big Questions of your field?
When young, I imagined that the giants of the intellectual world would be found chipping away at our deepest most important questions. Sure perhaps most intellectuals would work on practical problems with paying customers, or do less glorious but needed ground work, but the best and the brightest would focus on combining that ground work into deep answers. Aspiring to high status, I also tried to identify and chip away at deep questions.
Imagine how strange, then, the real world seems to me. For example, Caltech prof and top science blogger Sean Carroll publishes a well-written book, From Eternity to Here, arguing for his explanation for the arrow of time, clearly one of our deepest questions. Yet not only are such attempts rare, they get surprising little engagement. Of the fourteen other blurbs, reviews, and articles (besides mine) listed at the book website, none express an opinion on whether Carroll’s answer is right, much less offer reasons for such an opinion. Of the six Amazon reviews, two do express an opinion, one by complete-crank Ranger McCoy, and one by Lubos Motl, who says there is no arrow of time problem. I also found a review by Peter Woit, who rejects the whole idea of a multiverse. Geez, what does it take to get serious engagement of a proposed answer to a deep question?
via Overcoming Bias : Big Questions.