There's just as much wasted effort, not-invented-here attitude, and standing on each others' feet in the hard sciences as there is in computer science. The reason why it's so much more visible in this field, is that the financial barrier to entry is so incredibly low – all you need is a cheap computer, which you already have anyway. If doing physics experiments was as cheap as programming, a lot more people would build fusion devices for fun in their garage [1]. They also wouldn't advance actual fusion research, nor would they hinder it, and yet some distinguished physicists would lament that "in physics, we stand on each others feet".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fusor