Those in academia are obviously smart within their disciplines, but try sitting through a department or faculty meeting and you'll see that there is not a practical bone in their body. Many would never be able to work for a company because they can never agree on anything and tend to oversimplify complex issues or overcomplicate simple ones. My university was divided on Covid with the administration on the conservative side and the faculty senate on the far other side. The faculty were of the idea that we should take the most extreme measures regardless of cost or effort (or even evidence that it would work) ... even if it could prevent just one case. They have no sense of "cost vs benefit" or optimizing across all outcomes, not just Covid cases.