
14 ◾ Ac celer ating Dis cover y
chooses an area of specialization that is narrow enough to encompass a
eld wherein they can be familiar with all the important published litera-
ture and ndings. Of course, this implies that as time goes on and more
and more publications occur, specialization must grow more and more
intense. is has the obvious drawback of narrowing the scope of each
scientist’s knowledge and the application of their research. In addition,
each scientist will read only the publications in the most prestigious, high-
prole journals. ese will represent the best consensus opinion of the
most important research in their area ...