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One free scan finds every outdated or missing driver and matches the right update for your exact hardware.Free scan · exact hardware matchA 2019 study found that when an eminent life scientist died, publication by their collaborators in the scientist’s fields fell, while contributions by researchers who had not collaborated with them rose. The pattern suggests that a leading scientist’s departure can open room for outsiders—but it does not show that researchers waited for the death, that the scientist had personally blocked them, or that the newcomers overturned a scientific paradigm.
What the study examined
In “Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time?”, economists Pierre Azoulay, Christian Fons-Rosen, and Joshua S. Graff Zivin examined what happens to the fields of eminent life scientists after their premature deaths. The paper appeared in the American Economic Review, volume 109, issue 8, in August 2019. Its abstract reports a split in publication activity: collaborator publication flows into affected fields decreased after a star scientist died, while flows from non-collaborators increased markedly. The outsiders’ contributions drew on a different scientific corpus and were disproportionately likely to be highly cited. Read the American Economic Review abstract.
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The reported sample consisted of 452 prominent life scientists who died while active between 1975 and 2003. The researchers identified elite biology researchers using measures including citations, funding, patents, awards, and academy membership, according to Undark’s 2019 account.
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How publication changed after a scientist’s death
Undark reported several estimates for the affected subfields. These are study-specific patterns, not annual rates that apply to science as a whole.
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| Publication group or measure | Reported result | Context |
|---|---|---|
| Newcomers to affected subfields | 8.6% average annual growth in papers | Reported by Undark for the study’s affected subfields; not a universal rate. |
| Collaborators | About 20% annual decline in papers | Reported by Undark for the study’s affected subfields; the AEA abstract confirms the direction of the decline but does not give this estimate. |
| Newcomers’ publication growth relative to the collaborator deficit | Five years | Undark reported that newcomers’ growth took five years to make up for the collaborator deficit. |
Taken together, the figures describe a change in who was publishing in the selected fields: fewer papers from the deceased scientist’s collaborators and more from researchers outside that circle. They do not mean every field saw the same change, or that the newcomer papers displaced the collaborators’ work in every case.
What “one funeral at a time” does—and does not—mean
The title echoes a view commonly associated with physicist Max Planck: scientific ideas may gain ground as their opponents die. The 2019 paper offers evidence about publication patterns after the deaths of selected prominent scientists. It does not directly test every claim contained in that aphorism.
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What the evidence supports
- In the studied life-science fields, collaborators’ publication flows declined after a star scientist’s death.
- Publication contributions from non-collaborators rose, and their work was more likely to be highly cited.
- The pattern is consistent with fields becoming more open to researchers outside the prominent scientist’s immediate circle.
What it cannot establish
- Whether newcomers knew about the death or timed their entry because of it.
- Whether the deceased scientist personally resisted or excluded competing researchers.
- Whether new entrants intended to challenge the scientist’s ideas.
- Whether the ensuing work amounted to a scientific revolution or paradigm shift.
The researchers did not interview newcomers about their timing or motivations, according to Undark. The report also notes that editorial decisions could have shifted as the star scientist and collaborators published less. As co-author Pierre Azoulay put it, “We don’t really know whether they are coming in and turning against the superstar.” The findings therefore show an association, not a confirmed mechanism. The report describes the new papers as not especially disruptive and the change as more consistent with gradual evolution than a paradigm shift. Physicist and complexity scientist Aaron Clauset, quoted by Undark, offered one possible interpretation of a star’s influence: “A superstar scientist doesn’t have to exert power themselves in order to be powerful.”
A later comparison in literary fiction
A separate 2025 study by Oleg Sobchuk and Bret Beheim considered change in literature, not science. The authors analysed 23,162 works by 6,177 authors published from 1850 to 1940, using topic modelling and a decomposition method based on the Price equation. They found cohort turnover to be a stronger force than individual changes in authors’ topic preferences, with newcomer entrances having nearly twice the effect of author exits. Their conclusion was that literary change was more like “one birth at a time.” Read the Royal Society paper.
The comparison is useful only with the distinction kept clear: the 2019 paper tracks publication flows in life-science fields after selected scientists’ deaths; the 2025 paper tracks topic change in a historical corpus of Anglophone fiction. The latter is not a replication of the science study.
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