Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science.
Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science.
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DOI：
10.1073/pnas.2021636118
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发表时间：
2021-10-12
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
Evans JA
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Chu JSG;Evans JA
科学领域的规模可能会阻碍新思想的兴起。通过对241个学科的9000万篇论文中18亿次引用的研究，我们发现大量论文并没有导致一个领域的中心思想的更替，而是导致了经典的僵化。在每年发表许多论文的领域，学者们面临着发表、阅读和引用的困难，除非他们的工作参考了已经被广泛引用的文章。含有潜在重要贡献的新文件无法通过逐步传播过程获得全领域的注意。这些发现表明，如果科学努力的数量增长-科学家、研究所和论文的数量-没有通过促进破坏性学术研究和关注新思想的结构来平衡，根本性的进步可能会受到阻碍。在许多学术领域，每年发表的论文数量随着时间的推移而显著增加。政策措施旨在增加科学家、研究资金和科学产出的数量，科学产出以论文数量衡量。这些量化指标决定了学者的职业轨迹和学术部门，机构和国家的评价。然而，科学家和论文数量的增加是否以及如何转化为知识的进步还不清楚。在这里，我们首先从理论上论证为什么在一个领域每年发表太多的论文会导致停滞而不是进步。新论文的泛滥可能会剥夺审稿人和读者充分认识和理解新思想所需的认知松弛。许多新想法之间的竞争可能会阻碍人们对一个有前途的新想法的关注的逐渐积累。然后，我们展示了支持这一理论预测的数据。当一个科学领域每年发表的论文数量越来越多时，引用不成比例地流向已经被引用得很好的论文;被引用最多的论文列表僵化;新论文不太可能被引用得很高，即使它们被引用，也不是通过逐渐积累的关注过程;新发表的论文不太可能破坏现有的工作。这些发现表明，大型科学领域的进展可能会被现有的经典所拖累。可能需要采取政策措施改变科学工作的生产、传播、消费和奖励方式，以推动科学领域进入新的、更肥沃的研究领域。
The size of scientific fields may impede the rise of new ideas. Examining 1.8 billion citations among 90 million papers across 241 subjects, we find a deluge of papers does not lead to turnover of central ideas in a field, but rather to ossification of canon. Scholars in fields where many papers are published annually face difficulty getting published, read, and cited unless their work references already widely cited articles. New papers containing potentially important contributions cannot garner field-wide attention through gradual processes of diffusion. These findings suggest fundamental progress may be stymied if quantitative growth of scientific endeavors—in number of scientists, institutes, and papers—is not balanced by structures fostering disruptive scholarship and focusing attention on novel ideas. In many academic fields, the number of papers published each year has increased significantly over time. Policy measures aim to increase the quantity of scientists, research funding, and scientific output, which is measured by the number of papers produced. These quantitative metrics determine the career trajectories of scholars and evaluations of academic departments, institutions, and nations. Whether and how these increases in the numbers of scientists and papers translate into advances in knowledge is unclear, however. Here, we first lay out a theoretical argument for why too many papers published each year in a field can lead to stagnation rather than advance. The deluge of new papers may deprive reviewers and readers the cognitive slack required to fully recognize and understand novel ideas. Competition among many new ideas may prevent the gradual accumulation of focused attention on a promising new idea. Then, we show data supporting the predictions of this theory. When the number of papers published per year in a scientific field grows large, citations flow disproportionately to already well-cited papers; the list of most-cited papers ossifies; new papers are unlikely to ever become highly cited, and when they do, it is not through a gradual, cumulative process of attention gathering; and newly published papers become unlikely to disrupt existing work. These findings suggest that the progress of large scientific fields may be slowed, trapped in existing canon. Policy measures shifting how scientific work is produced, disseminated, consumed, and rewarded may be called for to push fields into new, more fertile areas of study.
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影响因子：
8.6
作者：
BAK, P;TANG, C;WIESENFELD, K
通讯作者：
WIESENFELD, K
影响因子：
3.9
作者：
Chu, Johan S. G.
通讯作者：
Chu, Johan S. G.
DOI：
10.1126/science.1232808
发表时间：
2013-05-03
期刊：
Science (New York, N.Y.)
影响因子：
--
作者：
Wacker D;Wang C;Katritch V;Han GW;Huang XP;Vardy E;McCorvy JD;Jiang Y;Chu M;Siu FY;Liu W;Xu HE;Cherezov V;Roth BL;Stevens RC
通讯作者：
Stevens RC
影响因子：
56.9
作者：
Jones, Benjamin F.;Wuchty, Stefan;Uzzi, Brian
通讯作者：
Uzzi, Brian
影响因子：
10.4
作者：
Davis, Gerald F.
通讯作者：
Davis, Gerald F.