I always had the impression that whenever a scientific work group is growing too quickly, it is difficult to keep ethical and scientific standards. Maybe that’s even true on macroscopic scale? The paper “Age, Aging and Age Structure in Science” by Robert Merton & Harriet Zuckerman summarizes in 1972 (on p 498 of Merton’s collected works “Sociology of Science”) that<\/p>\n
the population of scientists, with a doubling time of about fifteen years, is far outrunning the acceleration rate of increase in the general population.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
and he quotes Derek Price “Little science, big science” p 19 that we<\/p>\n
will soon have two scientists for every man, woman, child and dog.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n
<\/p>\n
\n CC-BY-NC Science Surf , accessed 06.05.2026<\/span>\n <\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I always had the impression that whenever a scientific work group is growing too quickly, it is difficult to keep ethical and scientific standards. Maybe that’s even true on macroscopic scale? The paper “Age, Aging and Age Structure in Science” by Robert Merton & Harriet Zuckerman summarizes in 1972 (on p 498 of Merton’s collected … Continue reading Doubling time<\/span>