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Citations follow some power-law type of distribution, so the 10% (or whatever) of useful ones are basically the high impact papers, anyway. It would be more sur

by mirker 5y ago

Citations follow some power-law type of distribution, so the 10% (or whatever) of useful ones are basically the high impact papers, anyway. It would be more surprising if citations and usefulness were anti-correlated in some way. Back to the “gradient” analogy, in this case, papers have a feedback mechanism to suppress less useful papers. Science is not a random flurry of results mashed together.

AussieWog93 5y ago
>It would be more surprising if citations and usefulness were anti-correlated in some way. I have definitely seen some highly cited and influential papers overstay their welcome and hold the field back. That's not to say they didn't propel the field forward when they were initially published, just that their overbearing influence causes us to stick to a paradigm that is no longer producing results. "Science progresses one funeral at a time" and all that.