[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-322678-105":59,"doc-detail-322678-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","the-sciences-descriptive-inadequacies","THE SCIENCES - Descriptive Inadequacies","","Discussion of how science “growth” is defined and measured, emphasizing that easily counted metrics (money, people, publications, particle energy) do not reliably capture qualitative understanding. It summarizes attempts to quantify growth through publication rates and compares these with changes in scientific personnel and government expenditure, while noting nonlinear relationships. The text then examines limits and uncertainties in projections, including recruiting capacity and socioeconomic effects, before shifting to descriptive challenges in identifying when major discoveries occur.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/the-sciences-descriptive-inadequacies/322678/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/the-sciences-descriptive-inadequacies/322678.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Asher","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-11-06","2026-09-21",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":34},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"Why are simple numerical measures insufficient for defining science growth?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Because such counts (e.g., money, people, pages of articles) fail to represent the qualitative understanding and the qualitative rate at which that understanding increases.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"How did Wallace R. Brode estimate the growth rate of science?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"He used the number of papers abstracted in Chemical Abstracts and adjusted for differences between wartime and peacetime, arriving at an eight percent per year growth rate.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"What difficulties arise when trying to determine when a major discovery is made?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"According to Thomas S. Kuhn, it is often not possible to fix the date of escalation points, since some discoveries are difficult to date even when all the facts are known.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},322678,1790256812,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":34,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":139,"language":140,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":141,"faqs":142,"seo_title":143,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":144,"read_time":36,"preview_page_count":4},687197207639,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd","V02.N0.3,JULY1,1962THE  \nSCIENCES  \nPEBLISHED BY  \nLIKE MOST OTHER things alive,science grows;but it is frequentlydifficult to give a reasonable definition of “growth”in science.Gerald Holton,in Daedalus,cautions against using \"any easilycounted measure(money,persons,pages of articles,energy of accel-erated particles)to stand for increases in what really ‘counts,'namely,in the qualitative understanding and the qualitative rate of increaseof that understanding.The numbers are useful to a degree,but theeffects of numerical increases in hands,minds,and tools for scienceare highly nonlinear.\"Nevertheless,it is done,presumably on theassumption that some measure is better than none.Peculiarly,orperversely,different measures turn out to be of similar magnitude.  \nAs a measure of the growth of science,Wallace R.Brode,inAmerican Scientist,takes the numbers of papers abstracted in Chem-ical Abstracts and adjusts the curve for war-time and peace-timedifferences.He arrives at an eight per cent per year growth rate.Heconsiders chemistry to be fairly representative of science generally,and since about 20 per cent of all scientific literature is in chemicaland allied fields,it is a not unreasonable sample.  \nThis growth rate is in remarkably close agreement with the ex-pansion of the number of scientific personnel around the world,which is increasing at about ten per cent per annum.However,the two figures are not unrelated,and so their agreement may besomething less than significant.  \nOn the other hand,government expenditures for science haveincreased by a factor of 100,in the United States,since 1940.Thisis something less than doubling every year,but it cannot be compared  \nwith the other figures -it represents a recognition and a stimulationof the growth of science,but it is not itself a measure of that growthat any particular time.Holton gives an estimate of the growth of ap-plied ideas in some \"specific,lively field on the frontiers of physicalscience”:during the main stages of growth,there is a doubling everyfive to fifteen years.This is actually slower at the beginning,and ittapers off as the field becomes“worked”for its main ideas.Thus,if science as a whole followed the pattern of its smaller subbranches,it would seem that there would be a limit to its growth,or at least aconstant decrease in the rate of growth.  \nThis,however,is not the case.Holton indicates that \"scientificresearch proceeds by the escalation of knowledge-or perhapsrather of new areas ofignorance -instead of by mere accumulation.”As examples,he cites the growth of research in x-rays:\"Thus in1895 Röntgen seemed to have exhausted all the major aspects ofX-rays,but in 1912 the discovery of X-ray diffraction in crystals...transformed two separate fields,those of X-rays and of crystallog-raphy.Mosely in 1913 made another qualitative change by showingwhere to look for the explanation of X-ray spectra in terms of atomicstructure...the Joliot-Curie findings gave rise to work that had onebranching point with Fermi,another with Hahn and Strassman.\"  \nThe qualitative and quantitative aspects of growth are not unre-lated.Dr.Brode takes the trouble to point out some facts so obviousthat they could easily have passed unnoticed.About 1.4 per cent ofthe working population consists of scientists and engineers.The ex-pansion rate of the number of such workers is about 3 to 6 per centa year.The population increases at about 2 per cent per year.Atthese rates,scientists and engineers will constitute about 3 per centof the working force in the year 2000.This could increase to as muchas 4 per cent.In any case,the number is “expanding more rapidlythan our economic and population expansion.Therefore it must beobvious that,unless something intervenes,ultimately the entireworld population could be scientists and engineers,all publicationscould be scientific or technical,and all our gross national productcould be devoted to research and development.”  \nThere are some natural limits to the proc","cbCaiviMWRMUoBgb","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiviMWRMUoBgb","pdf",600909,16,"English","# Descriptive Inadequacies\n## Defining and measuring scientific growth\n## Quantitative proxies and their limits\n## Escalation of knowledge and new areas of ignorance\n## Limits on recruitment and projection uncertainties\n## Dates of discovery and classification problems","[{\"question\":\"Why are simple numerical measures insufficient for defining science growth?\",\"answer\":\"Because such counts (e.g., money, people, pages of articles) fail to represent the qualitative understanding and the qualitative rate at which that understanding increases.\"},{\"question\":\"How did Wallace R. Brode estimate the growth rate of science?\",\"answer\":\"He used the number of papers abstracted in Chemical Abstracts and adjusted for differences between wartime and peacetime, arriving at an eight percent per year growth rate.\"},{\"question\":\"What difficulties arise when trying to determine when a major discovery is made?\",\"answer\":\"According to Thomas S. Kuhn, it is often not possible to fix the date of escalation points, since some discoveries are difficult to date even when all the facts are known.\"}]","THE SCIENCES - Descriptive Inadequacies | PDF",1789963293]