Early-career researchers do more ‘disruptive’ science than veterans. Analysis of millions of scientists shows that older researchers tend to stick with ideas from their past. This phenomenon, the nostalgia effect, can hold back scientific innovation, as scientists get hung up on ideas from the past.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01466-z
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**Early-career researchers do more ‘disruptive’ science than veterans**
**Analysis of papers from millions of scientists shows that older researchers tend to stick with ideas from their past.**
Experienced researchers are less likely to produce [‘disruptive’ science](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01548-4) than are those just starting their careers, finds an analysis of the scientific papers published by 12.5 million researchers over 60 years. The authors discovered that older researchers are better at connecting existing ideas to produce new knowledge than are younger researchers. But those with more experience are worse at achieving massive breakthroughs that overhaul, or disrupt, entire fields of research — as happened with innovations such as the discovery of the structure of DNA.
[](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-01548-4)
The analysis, which was published today in *Science*[1](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-01466-z#ref-CR1), also concludes that, as their careers progress, scientists are more likely to cite older papers than newer ones. This phenomenon, which the authors call the nostalgia effect, can hold back scientific innovation, they say, because scientists get hung up on ideas from the past and are not as receptive to new developments.
The finding isn’t surprising — it aligns with [previous studies](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03117-1) documenting [a decades-long global decline in disruptive science](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-04577-5) as the scientific workforce ages, says Russell Funk, a sociologist at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis who was not involved in the latest analysis. But it does identify a potential mechanism for the trend, he says. “Scientists become less disruptive as they age, and the scientific workforce is getting older, so the entire system is shifting toward a composition that favours consolidation [of existing ideas] over disruption,” he says.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ady8732
This has been known for hundreds of years. I doubt it has to do with old scientists being tired, or resistant to change. Rather it takes fresh eyes to see something new. Once you find your thing, you’re going to continue to study it for the rest of your career. Refining more than the innovative first step you took.
I also suspect how we fund science plays a huge role. If you had a lab and a team and free rein to do anything you want, all ages would be more innovative. But when you’re starting out you have nothing, and no requirements. And as you move up you have a lab and team to care for. So it is more important to secure the funding, and less important to get noticed with way out there ideas.
Interesting timing.
I recently listened to an NPR segment saying the same thing about dentists.
Depending on when they graduated their approaches to cavities are very different.
Older dentists: drill and fill no matter what.
Younger dentists with more up-to-date training: Different toothpaste, better hygiene, monitor.
I recently went through something similar, an older dentist, well recommended, wanted to completely remove a tooth and install an implant.
A second recomendation from a dentist 30 years younger was to do the least invasive solution possible, crown as a first option, root canal next, implant as a last resort.
She told me many older dentists were trained to use the most expensive option to grow their business since patients only seek care when something hurts, while younger dentists find the least expensive option and grow their business with long-term preventative care, not a one-and-done expensive solution.
Older researchers probably made their name within a specific topic xy and therefore quoted a lot.
The whole career of a former professor where I worked was built on cognitive load theory. Although there is a lot to question in this area of research, he sticks to it because changing the whole topic would mean he no longer believes in all of the things that justify his position.
I wonder how much this has to do with true insight. It’s tough to have more than one truly insightful breakthrough or idea in a single mind, even a genius one. Once you’re a vet, you’ve tended to already achieved your one great idea and don’t usually have another.
What about new researchers getting a late career start? Like starting in their 40s?
That’s why you say “science progresses one death at a time “.
I was noticing this in my own research and I’m only 35.
They have to don’t they? With such high competition for jobs and funding you have to take risks to find a niche. The success rate of risky innovation would be interesting and what happens when it doesn’t pan out.
I feel like “nostalgia effect” is a misnomer. Older scientists (and older human beings in general for that matter) don’t stick to old, potentially out of date ways due to nostalgia, but out of an unwillingness or inability to adapt and keep up with new developments. Why? Because humans in general simply find what works for them at some point in their lives and then become overly comfortable and invested in that to be able to adapt. That’s not nostalgia, that’s somewhere between comfort, laziness, and obstinacy
I think it’s a natural consequence of different career pressures and probably fatigue. When there’s pressure to publish to get tenure or a promotion in rank, it’s just easier to build on something you already know. Add in deadlines, bills, and demands to teach, mentor, etc, and oftentimes the easier path wins. Earlier career academics have no track-record to build on, so they have more space to build something new or just explore. Even though exploration is essential in every field, there’s a lot of pressures against it as academics mature.
ya but no one gives early career scientists money anymore.
I’d say that’s across all fields
I just read an article in the Atlantic that said the median age for Nobel prize winning work was 47. I wonder if, in this context, disruptive is good.
Science progresses one death at a time.