论文和专利的颠覆性越来越弱(上)

Papers and patents are becoming less challenging of orthodoxy.

论文和专利对正统观念的挑战正变得越来越小。

"Ideas are like rabbits," John Steinbeck said.

约翰·斯坦贝克说：“想法就像兔子。”

"You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."

“一开始你有几个想法，学着如何处理它们，很快你就会有好多想法。”

Scientific and technological progress is often viewed in this way.

科技进步往往就是这样。

Current ideas build on previous ones.

当前的想法是建立在以前的想法基础上的。

And ideas, along with papers and patents, have indeed proliferated in the recent past.

在最近一段时期，想法以及论文和专利的数量在激增。

Yet despite - or perhaps because of - this productivity (papers published and patents issued each year now number in the millions), it has been documented that innovation within specific fields has been in decline.

然而，尽管——或许是因为——产出率很高（现在每年发表的论文和发明的专利数量以数百万计），但有记录表明，特定领域的创新数量一直在下降。

For example, a paper titled "Science in the age of selfies", published in 2016, warned of a shifting incentive-and-information landscape in biology, particularly neuroscience, that has diluted the number of high-impact discoveries.

例如，2016年发表的一篇题为《自拍时代的科学》的论文警告称，生物学，特别是神经科学中激励和信息模式的不断变化，稀释了高影响力发现的数量。

Michael Park and Russell Funk of the University of Minnesota, and Erin Leahey of the University of Arizona, have set out to determine whether this decline holds for science and technology in general.

明尼苏达大学的迈克尔·帕克和拉塞尔·芬克，以及亚利桑那大学的艾琳·利希，正在研究高影响力发现的减少是否发生在整个科学和技术界。

In a study published this week in Nature they analyse 45m papers and 3.9m patents published and filed between 1945 and 2010.

在本周发表在《自然》杂志上的一项研究中，他们分析了1945年至2010年间发表和提交的4500万篇论文和390万项专利。

The measurement they use for this work, known as the CD index, quantifies how "consolidating" or "disruptive" each paper or patent is.

他们在这项工作中使用了CD指数作为衡量标准，CD指数能够量化每一篇论文或专利对于已知事实的“深化”或“颠覆”程度。

A paper is consolidating (a low CD score) if later work citing it also cites the papers that it, itself, cited.

称一篇论文深化了当前发现（CD分数低）是指，后来的论文引用这篇论文的同时也引用了这篇论文本身引用的论文。

Discoveries and inventions of this sort - like a patent awarded in 2005 for genetically modified soyabeans - serve to propel science forward along its existing trajectory.

这类发现和发明——比如2005年授予转基因大豆的专利——有助于推动科学沿着现有的轨道向前发展。

By contrast, a paper is disruptive (a high CD score) if it is cited by later work in the absence of citations of its predecessors.

相比之下，如果一篇论文在没有引用前人的情况下被后来的论文引用，那么它就颠覆了当前发现（CD分数高）。

A classic example of that was the study published in 1953 by James Watson and Francis Crick on the double-helical structure of DNA.

一个经典的例子是詹姆斯·沃森和弗朗西斯·克里克在1953年发表的关于DNA双螺旋结构的研究。

High-CD papers disrupt the status quo, fundamentally altering a field’s trajectory or creating a new field altogether.

CD分数高的论文能够打破现状，从根本上改变一个领域的轨迹，或者创造一个全新的领域。