On the Growth of Scientific Knowledge: Yeast Biology as a Case Study Export

@article{citeulike:4202750, abstract = {<title>Author Summary</title> <p>It is of great interest to understand the patterns and mechanisms of scientific knowledge growth, but such studies have been hampered by the lack of ideal cases in which the structure of the knowledge is known, the knowledge is quantifiable, and the process of knowledge discovery is well understood and documented. The biological knowledge about a species is in part described by its protein interaction network and genetic interaction network. Here, we conduct a temporal meta-analysis of three decades of discoveries of protein interactions and genetic interactions in baker's yeast to reveal the tempo and mode of the growth of yeast biology. We show that the growth is exponential over time and that important subjects tend to be studied earlier. However, expansions of different domains of knowledge are highly heterogeneous and episodic such that the temporal turnover of knowledge hubs is much greater than that expected by chance. Familiar subjects are preferentially studied over new subjects, leading to a reduced pace of innovation. While research is increasingly done in teams, the number of discoveries per researcher is greater in smaller teams. These findings reveal collective human behaviors in scientific research and help design better strategies in future knowledge exploration.</p>}, author = {He, Xionglei and Zhang, Jianzhi}, citeulike-article-id = {4202750}, citeulike-linkout-0 = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000320}, citeulike-linkout-1 = {http://view.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19300476}, citeulike-linkout-2 = {http://www.hubmed.org/display.cgi?uids=19300476}, day = {20}, doi = {10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000320}, journal = {PLoS Comput Biol}, keywords = {research-practice, scientometrics}, month = {March}, number = {3}, pages = {e1000320+}, posted-at = {2009-05-24 17:11:29}, priority = {2}, publisher = {Public Library of Science}, title = {On the Growth of Scientific Knowledge: Yeast Biology as a Case Study}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000320}, volume = {5}, year = {2009} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:4202750 L3 - citeulike-article-id:4202750 N2 - <title>Author Summary</title> <p>It is of great interest to understand the patterns and mechanisms of scientific knowledge growth, but such studies have been hampered by the lack of ideal cases in which the structure of the knowledge is known, the knowledge is quantifiable, and the process of knowledge discovery is well understood and documented. The biological knowledge about a species is in part described by its protein interaction network and genetic interaction network. Here, we conduct a temporal meta-analysis of three decades of discoveries of protein interactions and genetic interactions in baker's yeast to reveal the tempo and mode of the growth of yeast biology. We show that the growth is exponential over time and that important subjects tend to be studied earlier. However, expansions of different domains of knowledge are highly heterogeneous and episodic such that the temporal turnover of knowledge hubs is much greater than that expected by chance. Familiar subjects are preferentially studied over new subjects, leading to a reduced pace of innovation. While research is increasingly done in teams, the number of discoveries per researcher is greater in smaller teams. These findings reveal collective human behaviors in scientific research and help design better strategies in future knowledge exploration.</p> IS - 3 JF - PLoS Comput Biol TI - On the Growth of Scientific Knowledge: Yeast Biology as a Case Study PB - Public Library of Science VL - 5 SP - e1000320 KW - research-practice KW - scientometrics AU - He, Xionglei AU - Zhang, Jianzhi PY - 2009/03/20/ UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000320 ER -