One funeral at a time ?

All the assorted political crises of late have got me thinking. For all that simply replacing politicians with scientists would be a stupendously bad idea, there are two key lessons from science that, if we could only implement in the wider world, would do us no end of good. The first is that science eventually gets closer to the truth, and even, on many occasions, gets at an answer so good that for all intents and purposes we can legitimately say, "yep, that actually is the truth." The second is that in this process of scientific inquiry, under some conditions people actually actively enjoy being wrong, which is a key way to avoid dogmatic entrenchment of crazy ideas.

Of course, only an insane person would say that science does a perfect job at either of these - it doesn't. Sometimes science converges on a stupid idea; sometimes scientists dig in their heels and prefer to believe utter crap rather than admitting their own faults, let alone enjoying being wrong. I plan to try and look at the general conditions for these in future posts.

For now, here's an interesting study related to the second aspect. "New ideas advance in science not just because they are true, but because their opponents die", said an exasperated Max Planck. That's hardly what one might expect if scientists really did cherish being disproved. So is science really dominated by big-shot superstars who dictate what's acceptable and what's heresy ? This article takes a nice, reasonably detailed view at why understanding this is complex.

According to the paper, which draws on decades of data on more than 12,000 elite biology researchers, when a superstar scientist dies their field sees a small burst of activity in the form of fresh publications. What’s more, the authors of the new papers, which are more likely than usual to be highly cited*, are typically newcomers who have never published in this subfield before... science is reassuringly robust; instead of fields getting into a rut, or even falling apart when a star dies, they continue to evolve.

* Important caveat - later in the article they say "new papers also tended to be more highly cited than other work the newcomers had done in the past", which does not mean they are highly cited by some more absolute standard.

That would, on the face of it, broadly support the funeral-based progress scenario. But it's not really as stark as all that :

But Azoulay, Graff Zivin, and Fons-Rosen found no sign that these new papers were particularly disruptive. In fact, Azoulay thinks these changes are probably not revolutionary — not paradigm shifts... Rather, the newcomers’ work is probably more like what Kuhn called the progress of “normal” science: the gradual morphing of consensus. What the numbers could be showing, then, is a detailed view of a scientific field’s natural evolution, paper by paper, over the course of decades.

And again the higher citations may not mean much - it could simply be that until someone establishes themselves in a field, there's something of a free-for-all to cite recent papers; previously unknown authors may merely emerge from the shadows of the fallen giants, rather than breaking free of their vice-like grip. However, there are clearer effects on individuals :

Papers by newcomers grew by 8.6 percent annually on average. At the same time, papers published by collaborators took a nosedive, decreasing by about 20 percent a year. After five years, growth from newcomers was so substantial, it made up for the deficit from the collaborators. In other words, large swaths of these fields had essentially been turned over.

Exactly why this happens in unclear. Is the presence of the superstar so great that it intimidates others from trying to compete ? Do people really consciously decide, "right, Professor Biggins is dead, now I can write up my theory of botanical time travel and finally people will take me seriously" ? It seems hard to believe.

It’s impossible to say whether newcomers knew about the death and thought it was a good time to act or had no inkling of the star’s recent passing. It’s also not clear if some of the patterns may have come from journal editors who, dealing with a dearth of papers from the stars and their collaborators, started to admit new voices to fill the space. And the study doesn’t explore the possibility that the impetus might have been indirect, perhaps from a colleague who knew about the death and encouraged others to put forward new ideas.

The other big question being the extent to which the leading figure influences the field and actively controls research :

“A superstar scientist doesn’t have to exert power themselves in order to be powerful,” he says. Many members of a scientific community are invested in the success of a star’s ideas, which are accepted because they’ve allowed research to advance. While the star lives, attention will be focused on them; ideas that don’t mesh with theirs are perhaps unlikely to get easy acceptance.

I would also wonder here what makes this figure so dominant. Is it that they've come up with an idea so compelling that everyone else is easily persuaded by it ? If so, people may simply not bother with alternatives just because they don't feel the need, rather than anything as sinister as the Cult of Professor Biggins (not that this is a good thing, mind, because in that case only hardcore contrarians will go against the grain, and they invariably turn out to be mad). On the other hand, perhaps they do actually make ideas popular through sheer force of personality, which would be worse.

I suspect a complex feedback effect operates, but I'm skeptical of how dominant any individual can really be without hard evidence to back them up. Sure, Einstein is the go-to figure of scientific genius, but no serious scientist believes his ideas were perfect - and relativity has the authority of evidence, not personality, as its bedrock. In any case, it seems clear from this that the funeral-based progress is at most subtle but important. No-one would deny that trying new methods and ideas is a good thing, though it should be recognised that getting these to become widely accepted is ferociously difficult. I don't think it's at all easy to say if someone becomes famous for a genuinely good idea, or if their ideas are only perceived as good because they're already famous. A bit of both, surely, but where the balance lies... that's the difficulty.

Then again, apparently the most cited paper of a researcher's career occurs pretty much at random. That would strongly suggest that if you have a good idea, the community will listen to you regardless of age (and by implication, established reputation). Of course that doesn't mean that other factors - your university, your supervisor, your research methods and instruments - don't also play a role in conveying a sense of trustworthiness and competence. And it would be fun to see if those most cited papers also follow the recent death of a the big shots in the appropriate fields...

Does Science Really Advance One Funeral at a Time?

A recent study suggests that after prominent scientists die, their fields see an influx of work from lesser-known researchers.