According to a study by scientists at the University of Minnesota, published in the journal Nature, science becomes less destructive. The authors of the study note that in recent decades, technical and scientific progress has declined.

While we constantly see news that researchers continue to invent incredible things, the authors of the study note that scientific discoveries have become less disruptive. Scientific innovation is slowing down and Breakthrough potential of discoveries fell in all areas.

According to the authors, discoveries in the field of science are less destructive:

• Research points to declining research productivity in semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and other fields;

• Documents, patents, and even grant applications are less innovative than previous work and less likely to link different fields of knowledge;

• The time it takes for a new discovery to win a Nobel Prize has increased, which the authors believe suggests that current contributions do not have the same impact as contributions from the past.

To arrive at the results of the study, published in the journal Nature, researchers from the University of Minnesota, analyzed 45 million studies and 3.9 million patents between 1945 and 2010..

Impact of the Fall of Scientific Discovery

The researchers analyzed two types of technological and scientific advances: those that improve existing knowledge, reinforcing the status quo, and those that disrupt existing knowledge, pushing research in new directions.

The impact of discoveries from 1945 to 2010 was quantitatively through the CD indexcreated by researchers. The CD index ranges from -1 (less destructive work) to 1 (most destructive). The research CD quantification was calculated by the number of citations that the analyzed article received, comparing whether the research in question contributed to science in a gradual or disruptive way. The quality of the research has not fallen, they say, but over time it has become more incremental and less disruptive.

For decades, researchers have noted a strong downward trend in the CD index in all areas of science: social sciences, technology, physical sciences (physics, the study of nature and its phenomena) and biomedicine, life sciences. In spite of this, scientists don’t know why the CD index has fallen over the years. According to them, the growing difficulty in conducting scientific research with strong methodological control, funding difficulties and other obstacles may be among the factors negatively affecting the field of science.

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Source: Technology Networks, Nature.

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