That does seem to be the problem the author is describing, but the author presents it as a failing of the scientific method, when it seems to me more a problem with incentives in research funding; that article would probably get a lot less attention, though. I'd read it: why are the incentives wrong? Is it risk aversion since most potential experiments aren't likely to yield breakthroughs? Do the people who conduct the right experiments not receive enough credit relative to the authors of the theories the experiments help build? Is it just a random aberration in a system where actors receive basically no reward for choosing a better strategy -- making the best course non-obvious and the incentives to identify and pursue it approximately nil?