One funeral at a time

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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Does science advance one funeral at a time?
https://campuspress.yale.edu/humanbrain/does-science-advance-one-funeral-at-a-time/
A pithy restatement of Planck’s observation is that science advances one funeral at a time. But is this really true? Azoulay and colleagues attempted to find out and presented their results in a 2019 study in the American Economic Review. These authors developed a clever approach by which they investigated the consequences of the premature death of a scientific superstar on journal publication rates within the subfield in which that scientist worked…

The authors concluded that the premature death of a scientific superstar opens up that scientist’s field to innovation…The first trend was that the number of publications in the subfield by the deceased scientist’s collaborators and co-authors went down dramatically. The second trend was that publications in the subfield by scientists who were not collaborators of the deceased scientist went up. The large increase in publications within the subfield by unrelated scientist more than made of the difference…

The authors suggest that the scientific superstar and collaborators form a clique that imposes a high cost of entry into the subfield in which the superstar dominates. This cost of entry might be reflected by allocation of grant funding by study sections dominated by the superstar’s collaborators (so-called financial gatekeeping), by greater ease of publication in scientific journals for clique members, and by invitations to speak at conferences.

DB2

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That makes sense. They form a clique, a cabal, that stops innovation instead of collaboration. Seems to happen in all forms of human relationships.

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Bob,

There is no measure.

Economic measure? Zero?

Did economic productivity fall?

It is interesting how Ph.Ds can say nothing much and think it is important.

Milton Friedman in economics did that endlessly.

The study does not say that. The outcome might have been the opposite.

This Yale study by newbies has been costly. Let’s skip these guys next time.

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I am just making an observation that I have noticed. People form tribal groups and then instead of collaboration they take sides. Instead of coming up with solutions.

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The successful researchers are gatekeepers getting money and helping decide what research will go forward. They have a track record of comprehending what is needed in their sciences.

Assuming anyone else without a track record will do better is not that simple or that easy. It is a limited system anyway. Meaning the Ph.D students are mostly under those with the track record. It is a self fulfilling systems. It is very successful.

Now rip out someone age 45 or 55 who is successful and dies young. It is not better for outcomes.

The extreme of this is comparing CEOs who are engineers to CEOs who are MBAs in a major tech corporation. Future projects fail for lack of leadership with the MBAs.

We can not just throw anyone Ph.D into place and get the results. Ph.Ds are flimsy degrees. Work does not make up for ability