curse of the specialist

There is an old saying that when you are a hammer everything looks like a nail. And a newer version that if you are a surgeon, all medical issues have a cutting solution.
There is a disservice to the creativeness within when we narrow our vision too much. Where I grew up they had an annual conference between world renowned members from different disciplines to contemplate the big issues of the day. Sort of the ultimate think tank. There is some validity to this approach, but I think the desired synergy has never really been achieved. Instead I think of a box filled with an equal number of red balls and yellow balls. You can shake the balls or arrange them in patterns. In the end you always have a box with yellow and red balls. You never get a box of orange balls. Maybe if you backed far away and squinted then the box might look a bit orangish, but closeup it is still red and yellow.
Over and over again I see TV series that explain the great discoveries of the world and time and time again it is those people who look at the world with knowledge that spans more than a single discipline that bring the insights that progress the fields of science, medicine, engineering and more.

There are people who will always be just yellow or just red or just blue or just... but then there are some who will take a little from the red and add a little yellow and they can be the orange (or plum or chartreuse) that the think tanks strive to be.