Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?

2019/07/31 by Pierre Azoulay, Christian Fons‐Rosen, Joshua Graff Zivin · 2 citations
Decision Sciences · Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Biology #Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis #Economics #Environmental ethics #Field (mathematics) #Frontier #Geography #Law #Neoclassical economics #Philosophy #Physics #Political science #Positive economics #Sociology #Star (game theory) #Surge #Vitality #scientometrics and bibliometrics research

paper · doi:10.1257/aer.20161574

openalex publication_date 2019/07/31 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/04

Abstract

We examine how the premature death of eminent life scientists alters the vitality of their fields. While the flow of articles by collaborators into affected fields decreases after the death of a star scientist, the flow of articles by non-collaborators increases markedly. This surge in contributions from outsiders draws upon a different scientific corpus and is disproportionately likely to be highly cited. While outsiders appear reluctant to challenge leadership within a field when the star is alive, the loss of a luminary provides an opportunity for fields to evolve in new directions that advance the frontier of knowledge within them.

Citations

• Combined Measurement of the Higgs Boson Mass in pp Collisions at √(s)=7 and 8 TeV with the ATLAS and CMS Experiments
• Technical Change and the Aggregate Production Function
• Co-word analysis as a tool for describing the network of interactions between basic and technological research: The case of polymer chemsitry
• Visualizing knowledge domains
• Central Dogma of Molecular Biology
• How Much Should We Trust Differences-In-Differences Estimates?
• The Log of Gravity
• Academic freedom, private‐sector focus, and the process of innovation
• Public R&D Investments and Private-sector Patenting: Evidence from NIH Funding Rules
• A Model of Growth Through Creative Destruction
• The Temporal Structure of Scientific Consensus Formation
• Tradition and Innovation in Scientists’ Research Strategies
• Endogenous Technological Change
• Maps of random walks on complex networks reveal community structure
• A Dynamic Network Measure of Technological Change
• Social Structure in a Group of Scientists: A Test of the "Invisible College" Hypothesis
• The applied value of public investments in biomedical research
• The Burden of Knowledge and the “Death of the Renaissance Man”: Is Innovation Getting Harder?
• A Method of Matrix Analysis of Group Structure
• Planck's Principle

Cited by

• Standing on the Shoulders of (Male) Giants: Gender Inequality and the Technological Impact of Scientific Ideas
• Human overpopulation [wikipedia]
• Planck's principle [wikipedia]

Related

• Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?
• Aging and the Narrowing of Scientific Innovation
• Standing on the shoulders of giants: How star scientists influence their coauthors
• Long live the scientists: Tracking the scientific fame of great minds in physics
• Slowed canonical progress in large fields of science