From The Expert and Educated Incapacity , by Herman Kahn

Educated incapacity often refers to an acquired or learned inability to understand or even perceive a problem, much less a solution. The original phrase, "trained incapacity," comes from the economist Thorstein Veblen, who used it to refer, among other things, to the inability of those with engineering or sociology training to understand certain issues which they would have been able to understand if they had not had this training.

The training is essential to gain the skill, and society wants these people to have the skills, so I am not objecting to the training. But the training does come at some costs by narrowing the perspectives of the individuals concerned...

When a possibility comes up that is ruled out by the accepted framework, an expert--or well-educated individual--is often less likely to see it than an amateur without the confining framework.

For example, one naturally prefers to consult a trained doctor than an untrained person about matters of health. But if a new cure happens to be developed that is at variance with accepted concepts, the medical profession is often the last to accept it...

Educated incapacity in the United States today seems to derive from the general educational and intellectual milieu rather than from a specific education...

Individuals raised in this milieu often have difficulty with relatively simple degrees of reality testing--e.g., about the attitudes of the lower middle classes, national security issues, national prestige, welfare, and race. This is not to say that other groups might not be equally biased and illusioned--only that their illusions are generally reflected in more traditional ways.