Exploring the interdisciplinary evolution of a discipline: the case of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Chen, Shiji; Arsenault, Clément; Gingras, Yves; Larivière, Vincent

doi:10.1007/s11192-014-1457-6

Cited by 45 publications

(34 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…A derivative science will not necessarily remain an overlapping science, and our research and literature bibliographic analyses have clearly shown biochemistry to be its very own discipline. In fact, some studies have shown biochemistry as a discipline to be closer to medicine than to chemistry . The flow of the Nobel Prizes, however, has gone in the opposite direction (see Figure ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One of these studies shows that between 1961 and 1981 biochemistry and molecular biology were influenced by medicine and biology and to a lower extend by physics and chemistry. Afterwards, other disciplines besides medicine influenced life sciences and, in general, the influence of chemistry wound down …”

Section: Are Chemistry and Biochemistry The Same Or Different Disciplmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Mutation of the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry” into the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences”: Several Decades of Transparent and Opaque Evidence of Change within the Nobel Prize Program

Seeman

Restrepo

2020

Angew Chem Int Ed

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Over the past several decades, the Nobel Prize program has slowly but steadily been modified in both transparent and opaque ways. A transparent change has been the creation of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, officially known as the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. An opaque change has been the mutation of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry into what is effectively the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences.” This paper presents a detailed study of this opaque change, including evidence that the disciplines of chemistry and biochemistry cover, today, intellectually quite distinct and generally scientifically‐unrelated intellectual territory. This paper supports the evolution of the Nobel Prizes, and encourages the Nobel Prize program to move from opaque to transparent change processes for the next generations of achievement in the sciences.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Are Chemistry and Biochemistry The Same Or Different Disciplmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Mutation of the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry” into the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences”: Several Decades of Transparent and Opaque Evidence of Change within the Nobel Prize Program

Seeman

Restrepo

2020

Angew Chem Int Ed

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“…Sociologists and historians of knowledge have long been interested in disciplines, and in identifying and comparing how groups of specialists produce expert knowledge (e.g., Abbott ; Camic, Gross, and Lamont ; Chen et al. ; Collins ; Fourcade ; Jacobs ; Lamont ; Whitley ). Kuhn's () classic book, which set the agenda for much scholarship on disciplinary paradigm shifts and revolutions, was motivated in part by his efforts to understand why disputes about the legitimacy of fundamental questions and methods are rare in physics, biology, and chemistry while being seemingly “endemic” in sociology and psychology.…”

Section: Sociology Of Knowledgementioning

confidence: 99%

From Porter to Bourdieu: The Evolving Specialty Structure of English Canadian Sociology, 1966 to 2014

Stokes

McLevey

2016

Canadian Review of Sociology

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How has English Canadian sociology changed from 1966 to 2014? Has it become more intellectually fragmented or cohesive over time? We answer these questions by analyzing cocitation networks extracted from 7,141 sociology articles published in 169 journals. We show how the most central early specialties developed largely in response to John Porter's The Vertical Mosaic. In later decades, the discipline diversified, fragmented, and then reorganized around a new set of specialties knit together by the work of Pierre Bourdieu. The discipline was most intellectually fragmented in periods where multiple specialties were emerging or declining concurrently (i.e., 1975 to 1984 and 1995 to 2004), and was more structurally cohesive from 2005 to 2014 than in any previous period. Comment est-ce que la sociologie canadienne-anglaise a-t-elle changé entre 1966 et 2014? Est-elle devenue plus intellectuellement fragmentée ou cohérente avec le temps? Nous répondons à ces questions en analysant des réseaux de co-citation qui ont été déduits de 7,141 articles publiés par 169 journaux. Nous démontrons les spécialités primordiales se sont développées en réponse de The Vertical Mosaic de John Porter. Durant les décennies suivantes, la discipline s'est diversifiée, fragmentée et puis s'est réorganisée autour d'une nouvelle série de spécialités liées ensemble par le travail de Pierre Bourdieu. La discipline était la plus intellectuellement fragmentée durant les périodes où plusieurs spécialités émergeaient ou déclinaient concurremment (par exemple de 1975 à 1985 et de 1995 à 2004). Par contre, elle était plus cohérente que tous les autres périodes entre 2005 et 2014.

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“…Chen, Arsenault, Gingras, and Larivière (2015) showed by analyzing cross-disciplinary citations from 1910 to 2012 that chemical physics began to influence biomedical research in the early 1960s (see their Figure 8); they note no additional significant influences of physics on biomedicine. Of the scientific disciplines in which Nobel Prizes are awarded, biomedicine is perhaps the most distant, intuitively, from physics.…”

Section: Nobel Numbers Between Disciplinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Using a combination of term-frequency and citation analyses, Waltman, van Raan, and Smart (2014) demonstrate a robust interaction between physical (including engineering) and biomedical sciences during the decade 2001-2010, noting in particular the rapid growth of medical statistics and informatics and its correlation with the development of proteomics and metabolomics, both of which present substantial data analysis challenges, as research areas. The one-decade time frame of this latter study does not, however, permit a straightforward comparison with the historical analysis of cross-disciplinary interactions presented by Chen et al (2015).…”

Section: Nobel Numbers Between Disciplinesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nobel numbers: Time‐dependent centrality measures on coauthorship graphs

Fields

2015

Asso for Info Science & Tech

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A time-dependent centrality metric for disciplinary coauthorship graphs, the "Nobel number" for a discipline, is introduced. A researcher's Nobel number for a given discipline in a given year is defined as the researcher's average coauthorship distance to that discipline's Nobel laureates in that year. Plotting Nobel numbers over several decades provides a quantitative as well as visual indication of a researcher's proximity to the intuitive "center" of a discipline as defined by recognized scientific achievement. It is shown that the Nobel number distributions for physics of several researchers both within and outside of physics are surprisingly flat over the five-decade span from 1951 to 2000. A model in which Nobel laureates are typically connected by short coauthorship paths both intergenerationally and between subdisciplines reproduces such flat Nobel number distributions.

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Exploring the interdisciplinary evolution of a discipline: the case of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology

Cited by 45 publications

References 33 publications

The Mutation of the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry” into the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences”: Several Decades of Transparent and Opaque Evidence of Change within the Nobel Prize Program

The Mutation of the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry” into the “Nobel Prize in Chemistry or Life Sciences”: Several Decades of Transparent and Opaque Evidence of Change within the Nobel Prize Program

From Porter to Bourdieu: The Evolving Specialty Structure of English Canadian Sociology, 1966 to 2014

Nobel numbers: Time‐dependent centrality measures on coauthorship graphs

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