ArticlemBio2015
Field Science--the Nature and Utility of Scientific Fields.
Article in mBio, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- The value of learned societies in the biological sciences: benefits, threats, and futures.BMC biology · 2026Review
- Climate Change Impacts on Environmental Fungi: Human Health and Fungal Disease.Current topics in microbiology and immunology · 2025Review
- The Problem-Ladenness of Theory.Computational brain & behavior · 2024Article
- Estimating the size of fields in biomedical sciences.mSystems · 2024Article
- Establishing ground truth in the traumatic brain injury literature: if replication is the answer, then what are the questions?Brain communications · 2023Review
- Disaster Microbiology-a New Field of Study.mBio · 2022Review
- Digital Health Consumers on the Road to the Future.Journal of medical Internet research · 2019Article
- Shorter distances between papers over time are due to more cross-field references and increased citation rate to higher-impact papers.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2019Article
- Tracking the evolution of virtual reality applications to rehabilitation as a field of study.Journal of neuroengineering and rehabilitation · 2019Review
- Revolutionary Science.mBio · 2016Article
- (A)Historical science.Infection and immunity · 2015Article
- Impacted science: impact is not importance.mBio · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Fields are the fundamental sociological units of science. Despite their importance, relatively little has been written about their emergence, composition, structure, and function in the scientific enterprise. This essay considers the nature of fields and their important role in maintaining information and providing normative standards for scientific work. We suggest that fields arise naturally as a consequence of increasing information and scientific specialization. New fields tend to emerge as research communities grow, which may reflect biologically determined optima for the size of human groups. The benefits of fields include the organization of scientists with similar interests into communities that collectively define the next important problems to pursue. In the discipline of microbiology, fields are often organized on the basis of phylogenetic differences between microorganisms being studied. Although fields are essential to the proper functioning of science, their emergence can restrict access by outsiders and sustain dogmas that hinder progress. We suggest mechanisms to improve the functioning of scientific fields and to promote interdisciplinary interaction between fields.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.