ABSTRACT
Mass innovation and the paradox of density interact to make the analysis of scientific advance more difficult. Citation analysis might help clarify the problem. From the standpoint of the social sciences as a whole, citations are problematic because the size of disciplines varies enormously: psychology is easily the largest, while anthropology, for instance, is relatively small. Some suggest that the number of citations a scholar receives, as listed in a publication such as the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), is a good proxy for measuring the degree of importance of their innovation. In a transitional or divided discipline such as political science, using the SSCI will overstate the degree of innnovation in public choice and understate advances in political theory. Psychology is largely dominated by journal articles, while historians must produce books whether or not they also write articles.
