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。”

Both consolidating and disruptive work are needed for scientific progress, of course, but science now seems to favour the former over the latter in a potentially unhealthy way.

当然，科学进步既需要深化性的工作，也需要颠覆性的工作，但如今的科学领域似乎以一种潜在的、不健康的方式越来越迈向前者而非后者。

Mr. Park and Drs Leahey and Funk found that the average CD score for papers has fallen by between 92% and 100% since 1945, and for patents between 79% and 92%.

帕克、利希和芬克发现，自1945年以来，论文的平均CD分数下降了92%至100%，专利的平均CD分数下降了79%至92%。

These declines are not mere artefacts of changing publication, citation or authorship practices; the researchers controlled for that.

这些下降不仅仅是由于出版方式、引用方式或作者工作发生了变化；研究人员对此进行了控制。

Why, then, has science become less disruptive?

那么，为什么科学的颠覆性变弱了？

One hypothesis is the low-hanging-fruit theory - that all the easy findings have been plucked from the branches of the tree of knowledge.

一种假设是“小目标”理论——简单的发现都能直接从知识树的树枝上摘取。

If true, this would predict different fields would have different rates of decline in disruption, given that they are at different stages of maturity.

如果真是这样，那么根据预测，鉴于不同领域的成熟阶段不同，它们颠覆性发现的数量下降速度也会不同。

But that is not the case.

但事实并非如此。

The decline the researchers found was comparable in all big fields of science and technology.

研究人员发现，在所有规模已经很大的科学和技术领域，颠覆性发现的数量下降速度都是类似的。

Another idea is that the decline in disruptiveness stems from one in the quality of published work.

另一种观点认为，颠覆性发现的减少是由于出版作品质量的下降。

To test this, the researchers looked at two specific categories: papers in premier publications and Nobel-prizewinning discoveries.

为了验证这一点，研究人员考察了两个特定的类别：主要出版物上的论文和获诺贝尔奖的发现。

"If there were a pocket of science where the quality might have declined less, or hasn't declined," said Mr. Park, "it would be in those places."

“如果一个科学领域的研究质量下降更缓慢，或者没有出现下降，”帕克先生说，“那么颠覆性发现就在这个领域。”

But the downward trend persisted there, too.

但下降的趋势一直存在。

A more likely reason for the change, the researchers argue, is that scientists and inventors are producing work based on narrower foundations.

研究人员认为，这一变化更可能的原因是，科学家和发明家研究的领域更“窄”了。

They found that citing older work, citing one's own work, and citing less diverse work all correlate with less disruption.

他们发现，引用时间更久远的论文、自己的论文以及没什么多样性的论文都会导致论文的颠覆性更弱。

As the amount of published science grows, the effort required to master a pool of knowledge that is both deepening and narrowing as the years roll by may inhibit the ability to form creative connections between disparate fields.

随着发表的科学研究数量的增长，随着时间的流逝，掌握一个逐渐深化且更聚焦某个细节的知识库需要更大量的努力，这可能会阻碍研究人员在不同领域之间形成创造性的联系。

Here is an argument for the rebirth of the renaissance human.

有一个关于复兴时期人类复兴的论点。

Mr. Park maintains there is room for optimism.

帕克坚持认为我们还能够保持乐观。

Though the average disruptiveness of discoveries has declined, the number of "highly disruptive" ones has remained constant.

尽管发现的平均颠覆性有所下降，但“具有高度颠覆性”的发现数量依旧稳定。

Humanity does not appear to be reaching the end of science.

人类似乎并没有走到科学的尽头。

Albert Michelson, winner of the 1907 Nobel prize in physics for his work on the immutability of the speed of light, which underlay Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity, is as wrong now as he was in 1894, when he said that it was "probable that most of the grand underlying principles have been firmly established".

阿尔伯特·迈克尔逊因其关于光速不变的研究获得了1907年诺贝尔物理学奖，他的工作为阿尔伯特·爱因斯坦的狭义相对论奠定了基础。他的理论是错误的，在1894年说的话也是错误的，当时的他认为，“大部分重要的基本原理可能都已经牢固地确立了”。

来源：经济学人