So who are the superstar researchers in stroke that are holding up research by staying alive and preventing challenges to their field and the current orthodoxy?
Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?
Pierre Azoulay, Christian Fons-Rosen, Joshua S. Graff Zivin
We study the extent to which eminent scientists shape the vitality of
their fields by examining entry rates into the fields of 452 academic
life scientists who pass away while at the peak of their scientific
abilities. Key to our analyses is a novel way to delineate boundaries
around scientific fields by appealing solely to intellectual linkages
between scientists and their publications, rather than collaboration or
co-citation patterns. Consistent with previous research, the flow of
articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases precipitously
after the death of a star scientist (relative to control fields). In
contrast, we find that the flow of articles by non-collaborators
increases by 8% on average. These additional contributions are
disproportionately likely to be highly cited. They are also more likely
to be authored by scientists who were not previously active in the
deceased superstar’s field. Overall, these results suggest that
outsiders are reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the
star is alive and that a number of barriers may constrain entry even
after she is gone. Intellectual, social, and resource barriers all
impede entry, with outsiders only entering subfields that offer a less
hostile landscape for the support and acceptance of “foreign” ideas.
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