Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 60208;
Department of Sociology, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 60637.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Oct 12;118(41). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2021636118.
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.
在许多学术领域，每年发表的论文数量随着时间的推移显著增加。政策措施旨在增加科学家的数量、研究资金和科研产出，这是通过生产的论文数量来衡量的。这些定量指标决定了学者的职业轨迹以及对学术部门、机构和国家的评价。然而，这些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尚不清楚。在这里，我们首先提出了一个理论论点，即为什么一个领域每年发表的论文数量过多会导致停滞而不是进步。大量新论文的涌现可能会剥夺审稿人和读者充分认识和理解新想法所需的认知松弛度。许多新想法之间的竞争可能会阻止人们逐渐集中注意力于一个有前途的新想法。然后，我们展示了支持该理论预测的数据。当一个科学领域每年发表的论文数量增长很大时，引文不成比例地流向已经被高度引用的论文；高引用论文的名单变得僵化；新论文不太可能成为高度引用的论文，即使成为高度引用的论文，也不是通过逐渐的、累积的关注聚集过程；新发表的论文不太可能扰乱现有工作。这些发现表明，大型科学领域的进展可能会放缓，陷入现有的学术范畴。可能需要改变科学工作的生产、传播、消费和奖励方式的政策措施，以推动各个领域进入新的、更富有成效的研究领域。
