ArticleeLife2017
How should novelty be valued in science?
Article in eLife, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 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
16 citing papers in PubMed.
- Harnessing meta-analyses' insights in ecology and evolution research.Royal Society open science · 2025Article
- Increasing Use of Promotional Language in Orthopaedic Surgery Abstracts-An Analysis of 112,916 Abstracts 1985 to 2020.Journal of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Global research & reviews · 2024Article
- Review
- On the scope of scientific hypotheses.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- The replication crisis has led to positive structural, procedural, and community changes.Communications psychology · 2023Review
- Novelty in research: A common reason for manuscript rejection!Indian journal of anaesthesia · 2023Article
- Injectable nanoporous microgels generate vascularized constructs and support bone regeneration in critical-sized defects.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Trends in the Use of Promotional Language (Hype) in Abstracts of Successful National Institutes of Health Grant Applications, 1985-2020.JAMA network open · 2022Article
- Does Ophthalmology Need Philosophy?Turkish journal of ophthalmology · 2021Article
- Competition for priority harms the reliability of science, but reforms can help.Nature human behaviour · 2021Article
- The model of local axon homeostasis - explaining the role and regulation of microtubule bundles in axon maintenance and pathology.Neural development · 2019Review
- Improving transparency and scientific rigor in academic publishing.Journal of neuroscience research · 2019Article
- Improving transparency and scientific rigor in academic publishing.Cancer reports (Hoboken, N.J.) · 2019Article
- Improving transparency and scientific rigor in academic publishing.Brain and behavior · 2019Article
- Promoter architecture determines cotranslational regulation of mRNA.Genome research · 2018Article
- A multi-disciplinary perspective on emergent and future innovations in peer review.F1000Research · 2017Review
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Scientists are under increasing pressure to do "novel" research. Here I explore whether there are risks to overemphasizing novelty when deciding what constitutes good science. I review studies from the philosophy of science to help understand how important an explicit emphasis on novelty might be for scientific progress. I also review studies from the sociology of science to anticipate how emphasizing novelty might impact the structure and function of the scientific community. I conclude that placing too much value on novelty could have counterproductive effects on both the rate of progress in science and the organization of the scientific community. I finish by recommending that our current emphasis on novelty be replaced by a renewed emphasis on predictive power as a characteristic of good science.
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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.