A little part to me didnt like the part about innovation causing problems either, at first. But when I re-read it with a few alternative twists I kind of like it.

Some problems NEED to be caused.

An interesting part to me is if we take it within the closing context of innovation also being a way of thinking (or however the author phrased it at the end) - it opens the door to considering that causing problems is a good way of effecting postive change.

For example, along the lines of your teaching environment example: Causing problems to inefficient or outmoded methods is bad for the folks who have vested interests in those antiquated systems, but good for the new generation of participants. Same thing with producers of goods and the customers who use the goods.

Same thing with Politics.

We could explore this from one end of our society to the other and likely come up with near universal examples of how failure to evolve results in the failure of a system.

Every time.

In Nature too.

From an Engineers view, the money people control the purse strings, the politicians make regulations, and the Engineers design build and run the system(s).

How often are decisions made with little or no basis in reality for the implications of the outcomes to the other participants?

Good example. Wholesale EPA ban of Asbestos with no consideration of the various forms of the material, the availability of a suitable replacement, the expense of knee jerk reaction of regulatory process vs ordered and systematic solutions to the known problems etc. Outcome: (among other things) we blew up the space shuttle with the not only a teacher on board but also with all the nation's school children watching.

Obviously there were other related symptoms, but thanks to Richard Feynmen we know about the O-Ring / sealant issues that were directly related to the cold weather launch and the subsequent failure of the (sub standard) O-Ring system.