Do scientific advancements lean on the shoulders of giants? A bibliometric investigation of the Ortega hypothesis.
Do scientific advancements lean on the shoulders of giants? A bibliometric investigation of the Ortega hypothesis.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0013327
复制
发表时间：
2010-10-13
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Leydesdorff L
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Bornmann L;de Moya Anegón F;Leydesdorff L
牛顿有句名言，说他“只有站在巨人的肩膀上才能看得更远”。与此相反，西班牙哲学家奥尔特加·加塞特（Ortega y Gasset）提出了一个假设，他说，如果没有一大批中等水平的研究人员，顶尖研究就不可能成功，而这些研究人员就像冰山一样。奥尔特加假说预测，高被引论文和中被引（或低被引）论文同样是指具有中等影响力的论文。如果顶级研究比中级研究更频繁地引用先前高被引的工作，牛顿假说将得到支持。我们的分析基于（i）2003年在生命科学、健康科学、物理科学和社会科学中发表的所有文章和论文集，以及（ii）这些出版物中引用的所有文章和论文集。结果表明，各学科领域的高被引论文比中被引论文更频繁地引用高被引论文。我们表明，在一个领域的科学进步的论文在更大程度上依赖于以前的重要贡献比贡献不大的论文。这些发现支持牛顿假说，并质疑奥尔特加假说（考虑到我们使用引用计数作为影响力的代理）。
In contrast to Newton's well-known aphorism that he had been able “to see further only by standing on the shoulders of giants,” one attributes to the Spanish philosopher Ortega y Gasset the hypothesis saying that top-level research cannot be successful without a mass of medium researchers on which the top rests comparable to an iceberg. The Ortega hypothesis predicts that highly-cited papers and medium-cited (or lowly-cited) papers would equally refer to papers with a medium impact. The Newton hypothesis would be supported if the top-level research more frequently cites previously highly-cited work than that medium-level research cites highly-cited work. Our analysis is based on (i) all articles and proceedings papers which were published in 2003 in the life sciences, health sciences, physical sciences, and social sciences, and (ii) all articles and proceeding papers which were cited within these publications. The results show that highly-cited work in all scientific fields more frequently cites previously highly-cited papers than that medium-cited work cites highly-cited work. We demonstrate that papers contributing to the scientific progress in a field lean to a larger extent on previously important contributions than papers contributing little. These findings support the Newton hypothesis and call into question the Ortega hypothesis (given our usage of citation counts as a proxy for impact).