Well, potentially good news for old folks doing research in psychology. Maybe. A new research study published online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) shows that over the course of the past century, the age at which "Nobel quality research" has been conducted has been rising. At least in physics.
For a mass media presentation of this study, see: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-07/nobel-prize-scientists-now-do-honored-work-at-older-ages.html The abstract of the PNAS article can be read here (if your institution has a subscription to PNAS, you'll be able to access the fulltext): http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/11/03/1102895108 Quoting from the article: |Summary and Conclusions |This article demonstrates that the frequency of great achievement |at young ages is more a function of time than field. The |analysis further shows strong, independent associations between |age dynamics within fields and both the prevalence of theoretical |work and measures of the stock of foundational knowledge. |Further work is needed to assess causal mechanisms underlying |these empirical relationships and consider alternative forces, |possibly emanating from the norms and institutions of science or |the scale of the scientific enterprise (20, 21). Notably, the dynamics |in age at great achievement, prevalence of theory, PhD |age, and mean citation age are especially pronounced in physics |and are coincident with the development quantum mechanics, |which Kuhn placed at the center of his analysis of scientific |revolutions (12, 22). The findings thus may provide candidate, |quantitative markers to help identify such revolutionary events, |providing an intriguing direction for future research. Then again, psychological science may not be relevant to this finding. So, who is going to look up the Nobel winner in psychology and plot their age of Nobel quality work against time in the last century? -Mike Palij New York University [email protected] P.S. Anyone have a list of names of people who won the Novel prize and that psychology claims as one of their own? Danny Kahneman, I believe is most recent winner and others include Herb Simon, David Hubel, Torsten Weisel, Georg von Bekesy, Francis Crick, John Eccles, Karl von Fisch, Eric Kandel, Konrad Lorenz, Ivan Pavlov, Charles Scott, Sherrington, Roger Sperry, and .... ? --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [email protected]. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=13971 or send a blank email to leave-13971-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
