Ask HN: On the Contest of Meat and Machine

I have worked in both production and R&D in my career. My experience provides the general sense that there is an inherent tension between exploration vs exploitation. My production managers were interested purely on delivering product A on time T, for the good reason of putting food on the table. It mattered not how, it mattered what and when. Finish it, ship it, forget it. In research (aka exploration) the how mattered as much if not more than the what. Often the what was a ready observable, already there, needing no manufacturing, but really an assessment or explanation.It was easy to see the groups mutually loathed each other, despite their self-evident complementary characters.

Is this what is happening currently in math/basic sciences/SWE?