Small Science Is Good Science?

 
I've been thinking a lot lately about what's wrong with science in the 21st century. Part of the problem is sloppy thinking that becomes apparent when you realize how many widely believed models are inconsistent with what we know about biology. I assume that similar problems occur in other disciplines.

One wonders if the proliferation of papers with huge numbers of authors is part of the problem. Maybe this fad of "multidisciplinary" science is part of the problem and not part of the solution? Is it possible to be an expert in two or more different disciplines?

I've seen plenty of example of biochemists and molecular biologists who publish papers about evolution without knowing much about evolution. Is this an isolated example?

Speaking of "big science," I was reminded of a paper published by Bruce Alberts back in 1985 in Cell. The title was "Limits to growth: In biology, small science is good science" (Alberts 1985).

These days, many people grow up believing that bigger is better. Giant factories that produce Wonder Bread have replaced thousands of corner bakeries, driven by the increased efficiency of scale. There is an unfortunate tendency to extend this view to the biological research community, and I have on occasion heard a major symposium speaker introduced in glowing terms as the coauthor of more than fifty papers per year. While I can admire the energy and management skills required to maintain a very large laboratory, the best biology is rarely done in this way. With a few notable exceptions, the biochemists and molecular biologists I most respect run relatively small laboratories and publish when they have something important to report. As I shall argue here, doing good science is very different from producing bread, and there are compelling reasons why large laboratories are in general less efficient and less interesting than smaller ones. To reflect this fact, I believe that changes in funding patterns and expectations would be useful in the biological sciences.

Some "big science" is good. The sequencing of the human genome, and other genomes, for example, was a big science project that benefited the entire biological community. But I'm not sure that significant advances in our understanding of how life works come from big labs. Does anyone have examples? What are the most significant conceptual advances to come out of big labs?

---

Alberts, B.M. (1985) Limits to growth: In biology, small science is good science. Cell 41:337-338. [PubMed] [doi:10.1016/S0092-8674(85)80001-5]