<story><title>Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations</title><url>http://blog.pnas.org/2021/10/is-scientific-progress-waning-too-many-new-papers-may-mean-novel-ideas-rarely-rack-up-citations/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ClumsyPilot</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s obviously waning if you look at any field that deals with physical world: a car from 1940 looks totally different than one from 1980&amp;#x27;s, but the one from 2020 and 1980 looks almost the same.&lt;p&gt;Space rockets are same as they were in 80&amp;#x27;s, where are nuclear engines, fusion propultion, etc?&lt;p&gt;Its the same for airplanes, appliances, and everything execept computers.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;Snowden&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1451342274667876353?t=RO7_VrhNEv7nPFCPc20XSQ&amp;amp;s=19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;Snowden&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1451342274667876353?t=RO7...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>supernovae</author><text>No, it isn&amp;#x27;t waning. There are struggles, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean its waning. We&amp;#x27;re having massive progress in medicine, space, cosmology, environment, biology, food, transportation.&lt;p&gt;Hell, the only thing that&amp;#x27;s waning is public perception of science and that seems to be a deliberate political attack.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>rmah</author><text>I started driving in 1982...  and I can say with 100% certainty that cars of 2020 may not &lt;i&gt;look&lt;/i&gt; all that different from cars of 1980, but under that skin of glossy steel and glass, they are &lt;i&gt;very&lt;/i&gt; different.  The engines are different (electronic fuel injection, timing and compression ratio monitoring), the transmissions are different (dual clutch, torque vectoring differential), the electronics are &lt;i&gt;massively &lt;/i&gt; different, safety features are like out of sci fi (parking cameras, adaptive cruise control, anti-lock brakes, in-dash navigation, ).  All that and the quality (fit &amp;amp; finish, reliability, durability) is hugely better.&lt;p&gt;A typical mid-market car of today would have been considered absurdly high quality and uber-luxurious in 1980.  The difference is night and day.</text></comment>
<story><title>Too many new papers may mean novel ideas rarely rack up citations</title><url>http://blog.pnas.org/2021/10/is-scientific-progress-waning-too-many-new-papers-may-mean-novel-ideas-rarely-rack-up-citations/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ClumsyPilot</author><text>I think it&amp;#x27;s obviously waning if you look at any field that deals with physical world: a car from 1940 looks totally different than one from 1980&amp;#x27;s, but the one from 2020 and 1980 looks almost the same.&lt;p&gt;Space rockets are same as they were in 80&amp;#x27;s, where are nuclear engines, fusion propultion, etc?&lt;p&gt;Its the same for airplanes, appliances, and everything execept computers.&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;Snowden&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1451342274667876353?t=RO7_VrhNEv7nPFCPc20XSQ&amp;amp;s=19&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;twitter.com&amp;#x2F;Snowden&amp;#x2F;status&amp;#x2F;1451342274667876353?t=RO7...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>supernovae</author><text>No, it isn&amp;#x27;t waning. There are struggles, but that doesn&amp;#x27;t mean its waning. We&amp;#x27;re having massive progress in medicine, space, cosmology, environment, biology, food, transportation.&lt;p&gt;Hell, the only thing that&amp;#x27;s waning is public perception of science and that seems to be a deliberate political attack.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>walls</author><text>Cars, planes, and rockets all have optimal shapes for their environment, of course they&amp;#x27;re not going to change much once they get to that point.&lt;p&gt;Cars are still vastly different today than in the 80s in (at least) performance, efficiency, and safety.&lt;p&gt;Planes are also getting quite a bit better, although adoption of these planes is slow as most airlines want to get as much as they can out of the old fleet.[0]&lt;p&gt;SpaceX has been &lt;i&gt;landing&lt;/i&gt; their rockets for several years now, and are about to take an even bigger step with Starship.&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=lapFQl6RezA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.youtube.com&amp;#x2F;watch?v=lapFQl6RezA&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>