Secrecy and isolation can play a positive role in the development of science, a professor has claimed.

Michael Mandler, professor of economics at聽Royal Holloway, University of London, cites the achievements of researchers in the Soviet Union as evidence of how detachment from the mainstream of scholarship can help to foster innovation and creativity.

Writing in , Professor Mandler says that scientists nowadays 鈥渉ave come to learn the results of their peers鈥� research with less and less delay鈥�. But, while this development 鈥渕ight appear to be unambiguously good鈥�, since it enables researchers to build on past successes, 鈥渢he free flow of information also brings negative externalities that can overturn this optimistic scenario鈥�.

Along with the internet, changing geopolitical factors have freed up the flow of information, and Professor Mandler鈥檚 paper illustrates why this is not wholly a good thing.

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鈥淏y the late 1960s,鈥� he writes, 鈥渕ost particle physicists had rejected quantum field theory and instead followed the latest fashion, the 鈥榖ootstrap model鈥�.鈥� The main exception was a group of Soviet scientists cut off on an academic 鈥渋sland鈥� beyond the Iron Curtain who 鈥渃ontinued to pursue a theory of gauge fields that would eventually describe the three fundamental forces in today鈥檚 standard model of particle physics. With the triumph of the standard model, the bootstrap model faded away. The moral of this story is that it can be valuable to have several scientific schools following different lines of research in ignorance of each other鈥檚 work.鈥�

Asked to elaborate, Professor Mandler stressed that freer communications have many benefits for science, but that 鈥渢he role of the paper was to open the door to the negative possibilities, which aren鈥檛 so obvious鈥�. For society as a whole, the ideal is 鈥渁 world where everyone takes risks, so you can follow up the successes and abandon the failures鈥�, he said. For individual academics thinking of their careers, however, 鈥渢he temptation is to follow in the path of something that is already a great success鈥�.

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So what can be done to mitigate some of these 鈥渉erding鈥� effects?

Professor Mandler admitted that 鈥渋t is not an option to weaken the internet鈥� nor was he 鈥渋n favour of re-establishing the Cold War鈥�.

Yet his paper suggests that, in the absence of secrecy and isolation, there are still a number of factors spurring people to strike out on their own. Researchers鈥� commitment to 鈥渃itation maximisation鈥� and editors鈥� desire to 鈥渟hepherd articles into publication that will be cited extensively in the future鈥� could both be helpful. More surprisingly, there may be something to be said for 鈥渟cientists who cagily refuse to discuss their work; even if motivated by paranoia, their secrecy can foster the initiation of new lines of inquiry, a socially productive goal鈥�.

To illustrate the point, Professor Mandler cited the case of Sir Andrew Wiles, who worked for years on his celebrated proof of Fermat鈥檚 Last Theorem without telling virtually anyone else. The advantage of such an approach for the researcher, he said, is that 鈥測ou get to publish more of the follow-up work yourself and so you鈥檒l get more of the credit鈥�. Yet this could still be good for science as whole, since 鈥渋f a researcher wasn鈥檛 sure he or she would get all the credit, they might not bother to do the work鈥�.

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matthew.reisz@timeshighereducation.com