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Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

blog.pnas.org

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Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#51
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars, planes, and rockets all have optimal shapes for their environment, of course they're not going to change much once they get to that point. Cars are still vastly different today than in the 80s in (at least) performance, efficiency, and safety. Planes are also getting quite a bit better, although adoption of these planes is slow as most airlines want to get as much as they can out of the old fleet.[0] SpaceX has…

"SpaceX has been landing their rockets for several years now, and are about to take an even bigger step with Starship." From 1940s, in 20 years we invented jet planes and rockets, and since then for the next 60 years we are fiddling with the same basic rocket design. Are you seriously pretending that taking 3 generation to learn to land them is as big of an achievement? If we kept up the pace of progress, we would ha…

I think you're making a flawed extrapolation here, because the space race and the cold war overly inflated the pace of progress in space at the time.

With the meagre funding that has remained since the end of that there has been pretty good progress so far.

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#52

One thing obvious is the breakdown between theory and experiment in physics. Newton's great accomplishment was discovering a link between terrestrial and extraterrestrial physics. Today on the large scale we see it takes multiple kinds of "dark matter" to explain the rotation of galaxies, structure of galaxy clusters, and cosmology. "Dark matter" evades any attempt to detect it on Earth. Einstein's prediction of how…

>>Since the gap between theory and confirmation of the theory could span a whole career, young physicists need to survive by pleasing their elders with fashionable theories for a decade without any feedback from the physical universe.

There are multiple ways of defining science: a method, methodology, epistemology... One definition is that science is the scientific culture. Stuff that impacts culture, without conflicting with methods epistemology can still change science. Science in a world where generations pass between hypothesis and test is a different kind of science.

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#53

No, it isn't waning. There are struggles, but that doesn't mean its waning. We're having massive progress in medicine, space, cosmology, environment, biology, food, transportation. Hell, the only thing that's waning is public perception of science and that seems to be a deliberate political attack.

I think it's obviously waning if you look at any field that deals with physical world: a car from 1940 looks totally different than one from 1980's, but the one from 2020 and 1980 looks almost the same. Space rockets are same as they were in 80's, where are nuclear engines, fusion propultion, etc? Its the same for airplanes, appliances, and everything execept computers. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/145134227466…

I started driving in 1982... and I can say with 100% certainty that cars of 2020 may not look all that different from cars of 1980, but under that skin of glossy steel and glass, they are very different. The engines are different (electronic fuel injection, timing and compression ratio monitoring), the transmissions are different (dual clutch, torque vectoring differential), the electronics are massively different, safety features are like out of sci fi (parking cameras, adaptive cruise control, anti-lock brakes, in-dash navigation, ). All that and the quality (fit & finish, reliability, durability) is hugely better.

A typical mid-market car of today would have been considered absurdly high quality and uber-luxurious in 1980. The difference is night and day.

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#54
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars, planes, and rockets all have optimal shapes for their environment, of course they're not going to change much once they get to that point. Cars are still vastly different today than in the 80s in (at least) performance, efficiency, and safety. Planes are also getting quite a bit better, although adoption of these planes is slow as most airlines want to get as much as they can out of the old fleet.[0] SpaceX has…

"SpaceX has been landing their rockets for several years now, and are about to take an even bigger step with Starship." From 1940s, in 20 years we invented jet planes and rockets, and since then for the next 60 years we are fiddling with the same basic rocket design. Are you seriously pretending that taking 3 generation to learn to land them is as big of an achievement? If we kept up the pace of progress, we would ha…

Starship is designed for mars. They built a new space craft that will be re-usable, at a cost efficiency never seen before that uses technology specially designed because of Mars. It's engines will use Methane - something no other manufacturer was able to master because of specific issues with those styles of engines and they did it in with the purpose of generating methane on mars to be able to fly back. The methane can be synthesized on mars from CO2 in atmosphere and Hydrogen in Ice. They had to invent the largest re-usable rocket platform, the first re-usable and working methane engine and the first flight computer that could take off and land...

Not only that, but they invented or invested in massive technology for manufacturing all of this such that the engines are often 3d printed and designed with precision only dreamed of before.

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#55

The entire college phd system is toxic and self serving. At my local college the guy the physic department building was named after was obsessed with some weird thing that no one understood and when he died they just mothballed all his "projects" equipment. No one had any idea what it was or what to do with it and it filled a good part of the building. He was not easy to get along with and shot down anything that he…

Academia now selects for people who are good at navigating bureaucracy and getting research funding rather than people who are good at doing actual research

What kind of comments does HN select for?

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#56
It's worth noting that scientific progress in the Soviet Union seriously stagnated in the Lysenko era due to the prioritization of ideology and the destruction of independent science.

I'd argue we are seeing the same thing in many western countries, especially the USA, under the ideology of corporate control of academic research. Much can be traced back to Bayh-Dole legislation in the 1980s, which allowed universities to exclusively license patents (which had been developed with taxpayer money) to private entities.

This created a new system of control and influence in academics, i.e. the Intellectual Property Office. What it really represented was the offloading of R & D burdens from the private sector to the public sector, while retaining private control of the patents generated in the public sector.

This means academic scientists in the USA today labor under the constraints imposed by large profit-minded corporations, just as academic scientists in the Soviet Union labored under constraints imposed by communist ideologues.

This is clearly seen in the pharmaceutical and medical sectors, where research into treatments for conditions is limited to patentable drugs only, older out-of-patent drugs are seen as unprofitable even if they're show to be effective treatments for off-label conditions.

Another good example is the elimination of R&D programs for renewable energy by the state; as fossil fuel interests infiltrated government and exerted regulatory capture at institituions like the Department of Energy, solar R&D programs in the USA were basically eliminated in the 1980s and 1990s (leading countries like China, Germany and Japan to become the world leaders).

There was also the gutting of environment pollution research that used to be funded by USGS, again due to regulatory capture and threats to deny funding in the 1990s.

Basically, the new ideology in American science institutions seems to be 'only do research into subjects that can generate profits for our corporate sponsors', much as it was in the Soviet Union, where the line was 'only do research whose conclusions support the communist ideology'.

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#57

No, it isn't waning. There are struggles, but that doesn't mean its waning. We're having massive progress in medicine, space, cosmology, environment, biology, food, transportation. Hell, the only thing that's waning is public perception of science and that seems to be a deliberate political attack.

I think it's obviously waning if you look at any field that deals with physical world: a car from 1940 looks totally different than one from 1980's, but the one from 2020 and 1980 looks almost the same. Space rockets are same as they were in 80's, where are nuclear engines, fusion propultion, etc? Its the same for airplanes, appliances, and everything execept computers. https://twitter.com/Snowden/status/145134227466…

100% HN

Pick any object and they are insanely different to the 80's.

With exponential change since the internet.

Look at a clothes peg, look at a screwdriver, look at a drill, look at a wheelchair, look at at fridge and look at a car.

A clothes peg 1980 - 2000 a linear amount of change, post internet 2000 - 2020 exponential amount of change.

Cars are so different it's hard to know where to start. Seat belts, air bags, paints, roof bars, lights, unleaded fuel, glass, cup holders (yes they matter), seat covers, car smells, locks, just keep on listing parts. Electric. GPS. LOMAX. Is this a troll? You'd be here forever.

Some general ideas existed in the 80s (like the idea of rockets existed a thousands years ago), some are new ideas, and some are ideas that have finally gained acceptance, some are ideas that are now affordable, some are ideas that need the material science, some are ideas that need the new processes, some are ideas that need the supply chains.

A lot of these marvels are not scientists though. It's commerce and internal company inventors that have changed the clothes peg for the better for instance. Maybe some of the material science is from universities, maybe.

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#58

No, it isn't waning. There are struggles, but that doesn't mean its waning. We're having massive progress in medicine, space, cosmology, environment, biology, food, transportation. Hell, the only thing that's waning is public perception of science and that seems to be a deliberate political attack.

I think "scientific progress is waning" is maybe not the correct phrase. I think it's more like "scientific establishment is waning" or "scientific efficiency" or something like that. The issue isn't so much "is progress being made?" I think that's clearly the case. The question is "are resources being wasted?" or "what are the opportunity costs?"

The blog post at the end kind of focuses on turnover of ideas and progress, which I'm not sure is quite the right focus. I think the original question, about how papers are being cited, are good papers being cited enough, are bad papers being cited too much, are papers being cited appropriately, is probably more on-point.

I think people have this schema that academic science is a bunch of brilliant people just looking around, and when one of them comes up with a brilliant idea, others recognize it because they're brilliant, and then it floats to the top. What happens in reality is really different: you have a bunch of people who are pretty smart, but not always as brilliant as they are made out to be, and they have their own misunderstandings, blind spots, and biases. Ideas explode in popularity because the field as a whole is ready to understand or accept them, not because of the ideas per se.

Re: "political attacks" I think this that's self-inflicted in that the worst part of all of this is the denial of how broken academics is at the moment among the scientific establishment. In any event, the focus of the article isn't really even about typical conservative anti-climate, anti-vaccine research, it's about citation patterns, written by academics, about academics.

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#59
post #36
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cars, planes, and rockets all have optimal shapes for their environment, of course they're not going to change much once they get to that point. Cars are still vastly different today than in the 80s in (at least) performance, efficiency, and safety. Planes are also getting quite a bit better, although adoption of these planes is slow as most airlines want to get as much as they can out of the old fleet.[0] SpaceX has…

I was watching the Boardwalk Empire not so long ago. When the main character was a boy, people were wearing fancy clothes, sending letters, and riding horses. As a grown man, he talked on the phone and flew a plane. Whereas my parents were flying planes when they were young. I fly almost the same planes(yes, more safe and efficient) and it takes the same time to get from A to B.

General Aviation was destroyed for many reasons, none of which were really technology or innovation problems. Commercial General Aviation was decimated by NIMBAs, Commercial Airline pressure, massive population growths, expensive to insure/maintain/own and to be honest, a lack of care of passion from aviation for the past few generations.

But.. the homebuilt and sport space has innovated quite a bit - glass cockpits, auto pilots, efficient engines, electric power plants, micro jets, composite aircraft..

Re: Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations

#60
I think there are a lot of major, groundbreaking discoveries ahead of us in fields like biology and applied physics. I think it's plausible that we may be able to cure aging in our lifetimes. I think that we're going to see breakthrough discoveries in socioeconomics and anthropology too.

With that said, you can only discover electrons once. The last new particle discovered was the Higgs Boson, and what are the practical applications of the Higgs? Nothing compared with the practical applications of the electron.

So, waning? Probably not, at least, not yet. But, we are getting out into the branches of science and not working on the roots anymore.

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