Stars and Science
3 important questions on Stars and Science
How do researchers identify problems worthy of study and choose among potential approaches to investigate them (Azoulay, Fons-Rosen & Graff-Zivin, 2019: Scientific Advance)
- Presumably these choices are driven by a quest for recognition and scientific glory
- However the view that scientific advance are the result of a pure competition of ideas, one where the highest quality insights inevitably emerge as victorious, is overly optimistic
- Established scientists are slower than novices in accepting paradigm-shifting ideas has received little empirical support whenever it has been put to the test
What components are there in the research of Azoulay, Fons-Rosen, Graff-Zivin (2019): Scientific Advance? (5)
- A matched scientist/subfield for each treated scientist/subfield
- A treated scientist is a star that dies unexpectedly
- Control articles appear in the same journal and in the same year as the treated source articles
- Control source articles are selected by matching on the number of authors, the age of the treated and control superstars, and the number of citations received by the treated and source article
What questions does the research of Azoulay, Fons-Rosen, Graff-Zivin (2019): Scientific Advance ask? (4)
- What characterises the additional contributions that together lead to increased activity in a subfield after a star has passed on?
- Are these in fact important contributions to the subfield?
- Do they continue to focus on mainstream topics within the subfield, or should they be understood as taking the intellectual domain in a novel direction?
- A startling result is that the magnitude of the treatment effect increases sharply and monotonically as they focus on the rate of contributions with higher impact
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