Cohen Barak A
Edison Family Center for Genome Sciences and Systems Biology and Department of Genetics, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, United States.
Elife. 2017 Jul 25;6:e28699. doi: 10.7554/eLife.28699.
Scientists are under increasing pressure to do "novel" research. Here I explore whether there are risks to overemphasizing novelty when deciding what constitutes good science. I review studies from the philosophy of science to help understand how important an explicit emphasis on novelty might be for scientific progress. I also review studies from the sociology of science to anticipate how emphasizing novelty might impact the structure and function of the scientific community. I conclude that placing too much value on novelty could have counterproductive effects on both the rate of progress in science and the organization of the scientific community. I finish by recommending that our current emphasis on novelty be replaced by a renewed emphasis on predictive power as a characteristic of good science.
科学家们面临着越来越大的压力去进行“新颖”的研究。在此,我探讨在决定什么构成优秀科学时过度强调新颖性是否存在风险。我回顾科学哲学的研究,以帮助理解明确强调新颖性对科学进步可能有多重要。我还回顾科学社会学的研究,以预测强调新颖性可能如何影响科学界的结构和功能。我得出结论,过于看重新颖性可能会对科学进步的速度和科学界的组织产生适得其反的效果。最后,我建议将我们目前对新颖性的强调,替换为重新强调预测能力作为优秀科学的一个特征。