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The parent explicitly talks about science in general. There is a tendency of some (often of those outside of science) that feel like science is getting worse ov
by nil-sec 6y ago
The parent explicitly talks about science in general. There is a tendency of some (often of those outside of science) that feel like science is getting worse over time and nothing of value is found anymore. The parent seems to echo this sentiment and gives very shallow anecdotes to make his point. Still it is the top comment as of writing. It’s just plain wrong in my opinion.
- btrettel 6y agoI didn't argue that science is getting worse in general and that nothing valuable is being done now, and that's not what I believe. I could see how someone could infer the former from the number of authors per paper increasing and me thinking that papers with many authors tend to be worse. My experience, at I said, could be field specific. (I work in fluid dynamics.) My view is more that science has never been particularly well done as a whole, though some recent things like the reproducibility crisis in social science and verification and validation in engineering have been promising. That some projects require a large amount of expertise that no single person is likely to have is true. But there are disadvantages to having more authors as well, e.g., "design by committee" immediately comes to mind. And I don't think a majority of current projects require expertise that no individual could have to an extent that would explain why collaboration is expected in science. Ultimately I think a mix of the two would be ideal for science in general, with a larger contribution from individuals than is seen at present. Also: If my example is a shallow anecdote than your CERN example is as well. I don't have hard data on any of this and you didn't mention any either. I'd be happy to look at any hard data that exists, but I don't know if there is any.