Science advances more by recruiting new researchers than by retooling existing ones

Evidence

Recruitment of workers for the successive eras has been accomplished more by replacement than by retooling. A few (e.g., Lasswell, George, Lane, Converse, etc.) have moved with the changing interests of successive eras. More typically, researchers who initially created each era have continued to do good work in that old line after the new generation has moved a replacement enthusiasm to center stage. Over the three eras the participating subdiscipline from within psychology and the auxiliary field have shifted from personality psychology and psychiatry, to social psychology and communication, to cognitive psychology and computer science; however, the political scientists in all three eras have come mainly from its politics subdiscipline, plus, recently, students of international relations (Sears & Funk, 1991). — John T. Jost and Jim Sidanius, Political Psychology, 388

Categorization

• XREF: This is Kuhn’s paradigm-replacement dynamic observed quantitatively within one subdiscipline’s workforce.