A few years ago, analysts with the National Bureau of Economic Research decided to try to quantify the headlock that “elite scientists” exert on their chosen professions. They wanted to know if Nobel laureate Max Planck’s lamentation on ego could be statistically proven: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.”
Targeting the life sciences, NBER formed a database of 12,935 scientists whose publication performance, patents, funding levels and peer pedigrees – i.e., membership in the National Academies of Science or the Institute of Medicine – satisfied baseline criteria. From there, NBER whittled the field down to 452 names. All were considered the rock stars of their generation, circa 1975-2003. More significantly, every one died before they retired.
The results of the study – published in December under the headline “Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?” – showed how subsequent publication activity by the deceased stars’ colleagues tapered off precipitously, by 40 percent, following the deaths of the luminaries. Into that vacuum surged the work of non-collaborators. It was up 8 percent within a year. Within five years, papers by the non-collaborators “fully offset the productivity decline of collaborators.”
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