‘Disruptive’ science has declined — and no one knows why.

The proportion of publications that send a field in a new direction has plummeted over the past half-century.

Thinking!

Thinking drives the evolution of humanity.

Disruptive thinking takes us - hopefully - into “new” and “improved” places.

But disruptive thinking is on the decline.

In science.

In multiple fields.

Including medicine.

Disruptive science means “new” thinking in science that takes us down different paths from where we had been going before.

Disruptive science means agile thinking.

New discoveries that move the needle of how we look and act in the world. Or, in medicine.

Theories of scientific and technological change view discovery and invention as essential.

But the largest ever computational study has done as a meticulous deep-dive into discovery and invention.