Is the world about to drown in science? The demographics look daunting. In 1800 there were perhaps a thousand people worldwide who could properly be called scientists. Nowadays, there are millions. At this rate, there will be a billion scientists on Earth by 2200. The trends in scientific publishing are equally stunning, indicating exponential growth. Scientists are multiplying like rabbits, with no Elmer Fudds to keep them—or scientific knowledge—in check.
That runaway growth has given rise to fears that science is taking over (just watch any Hollywood science-fiction potboiler to see how deep-seated those feelings are). The fears are based on two acknowledged features of science. First, it is cumulative: The facts and papers published in thousands of scientific journals just keep piling up. The leading ones, Science, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, generated more than 4,000 peer-reviewed articles last year. Second, it is opportunistic: Scientists ...
