The Lemming Instinct

 In certain vital domains, a pervasive mediocrity among practitioners can stifle genuine advancement. When the intellectual output of a field is predominantly average, it inevitably produces research of corresponding quality. Nevertheless, some of these ideas, by sheer chance or perhaps through effective dissemination, will inevitably gain traction. A significant number of scholars and researchers will gravitate towards these trends, contributing to and propagating further work along these established lines. Such a trajectory allows an initially flawed concept to ascend to the status of mainstream orthodoxy.

However, over an extended period, these prevailing ideas invariably fail to withstand rigorous scrutiny; they are ultimately and conclusively disproven. The disheartening pattern then reveals itself: rather than genuine progress, an equally unvalidated or incorrect idea often supplants the discredited one, swiftly establishing its own dominance. This cycle perpetuates, ensuring that the critical subject never truly evolves. Instead, it merely lurches from one erroneous paradigm to another, perpetually substituting one set of misconceptions for another, thereby precluding any meaningful accumulation of knowledge. 

Indeed, such a field exists within our current intellectual landscape. One might readily surmise it pertains to the realm of governance – an obvious, perhaps too convenient, choice, yet its characteristics align strikingly with this pattern.