![]() And with our global crises worsening by the day, the stakes of scientific progress have never been higher. And Evans says they’ve discovered ways to reorganize it such that it will generate a greater number of new ideas. Paul Rand: At The Knowledge Lab, they’ve mapped out our system of science over and over again, almost like taking MRIs on its brain. James Evans: One of the things that interesting is in these models, we can predict with some reasonable accuracy, not only what’s going to be discovered, but who’s going to discover it. In fact, it’s stalled to such a degree they can actually model what this brain will think before it does. His lab has shown that this system has gotten so efficient that it’s losing its ability to innovate. Evans studies how this brain as a whole thinks, and how to make it think differently. Each field of science is in a different region, and each scientist, a different cell producing and communicating across its surface. Paul Rand: Think of science, the system of science, as a brain. This is one of the reasons why I am deeply interested in kind of understanding this in a very nuts and bolts way, so that we can think about how to engineer this at a societal level. James Evans: We believe that things will get better if I invest enough money with the expectation that there will be some magical discovery that takes place in science, technology, or entrepreneurship that it’s going to allow us to do better. Paul Rand: That’s James Evans, a professor of computational social science and the director of The Knowledge Lab at the University of Chicago, where they use massive data sets, I’m talking millions and millions of scientific papers, findings, patents, discoveries, combined with machine learning techniques to study the science of how science does science. James Evans: We look at all fields, and in all these fields, as the number of papers goes up, as the growth of the fields goes up, the number of new ideas that enter the canon exponentially declines. ![]() Despite a dramatic increase in scientists and scientific papers, new ideas, innovative discoveries, and disruptive progress are actually slowing down. Paul Rand: But when it comes to progress, science has a problem with a confusing paradox at its center. The vast majority of productivity improvements come from improvements in science and technology. Paul Rand: Climate change, viral pandemics, global poverty, the solutions to our greatest challenges call for scientific innovation. Listen and subscribe to Science Sessions to hear more about their coral reef series on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. In less time than it takes to drink a cup of coffee, you can learn about advances such as aquaculture techniques for coral reef restoration. Paul Rand: If you like Big Brains, there’s another science podcast you should check out: TNAS Science Sessions, from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, features short, in depth conversations with the world’s top scientific researchers. ![]() Connect with experts in the social sector and discover how Chicago organizations are creating cultures of innovation and tackling pressing issues. Register at /onboard. Gain insights from Obama Foundation CEO Valerie Jarrett on strengthening community engagement and building partnerships. Paul Rand: How can nonprofits drive social change in Chicago and beyond? Join business and nonprofit leaders on April 29th for the On Board conference from Chicago Booth’s Rustandy Center for Social Sector Innovation. Computer programming languages can impact science and thought-UChicago News.Bigger teams aren’t always better in science and tech-UChicago News.Politically polarized teams produce better work, analysis of Wikipedia finds-UChicago News.Data science predicts which failures will ultimately lead to success-UChicago News.New ideas are struggling to emerge from the sea of science-Axios.(Episode published March 31, 2022) Related: Subscribe to Big Brains on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher and Spotify. He explains how we can get back to advancing science again. This dilemma is leaving newly published papers with less of a chance to disrupt existing work.Įvans directs the Knowledge Lab at UChicago, which leverages machine learning and is trying to reimagine the scientific process by providing better pathways for new scientific ideas to be shared with others. As University of Chicago Professor James Evans argues, scientists are overloaded by the flood of research papers they have to read, which is causing them to cite the same few papers over and over again. However, all of this growth hasn’t translated to more scientific progress. There are far more scientists in today’s world, and they’re publishing research papers at a much faster pace.
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