Open AccessSlowed canonical progress in large fields of science
Author(s) -
Johan S. G. Chu,
James A. Evans
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
proceedings of the national academy of sciences of the united states of america
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1091-6490
pISSN - 0027-8424
DOI - 10.1073/pnas.2021636118
Subject(s) - argument (complex analysis) , competition (biology) , field (mathematics) , work (physics) , scientific progress , positive economics , computer science , data science , political science , sociology , operations research , epistemology , economics , medicine , mathematics , biology , philosophy , ecology , pure mathematics , mechanical engineering , engineering
Significance 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.