Here’s an insight into the herd-like behavior of many academics by Pipes, the great Sovietologist, from his autobiography, Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger (pp. 91-92):

Scholars are psychologically less secure than most people…A businessman knows he is successful when he makes money; a politician, when he wins elections; an athlete, when he is first in sporting contests…But a scholar has no such fixed criteria by which to judge success and, as a consequence, he lives in a state of permanent uncertainty which grows more oppressive with age as ambitious younger scholars elbow themselves to the fore and dismiss his work as outdated.His principal criterion of success is approval of peers. This means that he must cultivate them, which makes for conformity and “group think.” Scholars are expected to cite one another approvingly, attend conferences, edit and contribute to collective symposia. Professional associations are designed to promote these objectives. Those who do not play by the rules or significantly depart from the consensus risk ostracism…Such behavior, observed also in animal communities, strengthens group cohesion and enhances the sense of security of its individual members, but it inhibits creativity.
What particularly disenchanted me about many academics was [the way they treated] a professorship not as a sacred trust but as a sinecure…The typical academic, having completed and published his doctoral dissertation, will establish himself as an authority on the subject of his dissertation and for the remainder of his life write and teach on the same or closely related topics. The profession welcomes this kind of “expertise” and resents anyone who attempts to take a broader view of the field, because by so doing, he encroaches on its members’ turf.