You can read One Straw Revolution for free on pdf. The link is in the Secrets of the Soil thread.
I think the obstacles to progress you are talking about in science are what Thomas Kuhn called Paradigms.
In my experience the most serious paradigm that has occurred is the failure of much of the scientific community to understand living systems. The field of medicine in particular doesn't treat the human body as a biological system, and medicine is not taught that way in medical school.
