Science Is Getting Harder
mattsclancy.substack.com
Science Is Getting Harder
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Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#2I tend to use and cite older works because they tend to be better written and reproducible.
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#3I tend to use and cite older works because they tend to be better written and reproducible.
Could this just be selection bias? Clearly the older works that people are still talking about are pretty special. This is sort of addressed in the "top cited papers" section. But I think a better metric would be something like "are papers that we'll still be discussing in 20 years still being published." Hard to say until 20 years goes by.
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#4The 20 years threshold in the analysis might be just related to the preferences of the Nobel committee.
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#5> A basket of indicators all seem to document a trend similar to what we see with technology. Even as the number of scientists and publications rises substantially, we do not appear to be seeing a concomitant rise in new discoveries that supplant older ones. Science is getting harder.
Nothing worth doing is easy. We have cleared the low hanging fruit and can now do the actual work. This is so exciting :)
(also I wonder sometimes if as a society we are teaching people less to be critical thinkers, who are not afraid to disagree with the mainstream)
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#6I tend to use and cite older works because they tend to be better written and reproducible.
Could this just be selection bias? Clearly the older works that people are still talking about are pretty special. This is sort of addressed in the "top cited papers" section. But I think a better metric would be something like "are papers that we'll still be discussing in 20 years still being published." Hard to say until 20 years goes by.
I am talking about old papers that might not be widely known (i.e., have few citations) but present some useful results that I can use in my research.
In my field, the latest papers are a bit "click-baity". They have interesting titles with many trending words but when you read them it is hard to find either a coherent vision or a single result that one can build on top of.
Of course, I am generalizing. There is great research being done today and low-quality papers in the past. But it is completely true that the need to publish has distorted the goal of research communication.
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#7I think we need to figure out how to extend human lifespan to allow for experts to continue to grow their knowledge/skills past the 40 year retirement mark to have a greater chance of making more advanced breakthroughs.
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#8I have always thought if I was born some 200-300 years back, I would have made many scientific discoveries by myself. Science has indeed got harder.
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#9Sorry if this sounds elitist to anyone but (I guess it is):
When the R&D workforce expands at the rate it has over the last few decades you will invariably see less talented and less talented people entering the field. Also, various forms of overhead will grow with the size of the workforce.
As an example about 20 people attended the 1911 Solvay Conference on Physics. How many attend a conference today?
With the growing size of the R&D workforce also comes the most destructive force in any human endeavor: politics.
Re: Science Is Getting Harder
#10I have always thought if I was born some 200-300 years back, I would have made many scientific discoveries by myself. Science has indeed got harder.
One common thing seen when looking back on discoveries is many times the 'same' discovery was made independently by many people. The bottleneck was more in 'publishing', that is getting other people to know about what you figured out.