气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science

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DOI	10.1073/pnas.2021636118
	Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science
	Chu J.S.G.; Evans J.A.
发表日期	2021
ISSN	0027-8424
卷号	118 期号:41
英文摘要	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. © 2021 National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
英文关键词	Durable dominance; Entrepreneurial futility; Science of science; Science policy; Scientific progress
语种	英语
scopus关键词	article; attention; competition; human; human experiment; prediction; theoretical study
来源期刊	Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/238783
作者单位	Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208, United States; Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States; Knowledge Lab, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL 60637, United States; Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, NM 87501, United States
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Chu J.S.G.,Evans J.A.. Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science[J],2021,118(41).
APA	Chu J.S.G.,&Evans J.A..(2021).Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America,118(41).
MLA	Chu J.S.G.,et al."Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science".Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 118.41(2021).