Large Teams Consistently Develop Science

Overview & Synopsis

Scientific progress depends on both developing established knowledge and disrupting it to make way for new ideas. Using the disruption index (D), our previous work showed that large teams tend to develop science, while small teams are more likely to disrupt it. Recent work challenges this finding, arguing that D mechanically depends on reference-list length. Using an alternative measure (oneD), it reaches the opposite conclusion: large teams are more disruptive. Combining Nobel Prize case studies, mathematical analysis, and large-scale publication data, we show that oneD misclassifies developmental contributions as disruptive and introduces the very sensitivity to reference-list length that it seeks to eliminate. The original measure, D, however, shows no evidence of the claimed systematic dependence on reference-list length. More fundamentally, even after controlling for reference-list length, larger teams remain more likely to produce strongly developmental work. Our findings reaffirm that large teams consistently develop science and offer new insights into the measurement of scientific disruption.