Is More Science Really Less Science? The Scientization of Science, 1900-2020

Sixty years ago, Derek de Solla Price’s Little Science, Big Science documented that scientific publications had been doubling every 10–15 years since at least 1900—a sign of rapid, sustained progress. Price predicted a “scientific doomsday,” when limited resources would halt this growth. This proved wrong: output has continued with “pure exponential growth,” now exceeding 3.5 million STEM and health/medical (STEMM) papers annually. Contemporary analyses of mega-science often repeat pessimistic narratives, claiming expansion diminishes innovation, yet rarely engage with the sociology or history of science. Price and today’s observers overlook key facts: the world has been undergoing deep and continuing scientization—embedding science as a central social institution, with expanded research capacity, diversification into new domains, and increasing specialization. Building on sociological insights into historical institutional development, we extend Price’s framework to explain why STEMM productivity has not plateaued. Driven by a global education revolution, networked universities have played three decisive roles in institutionalizing science: (1) institutional entrepreneurs; (2) main corporate units of research; and (3) fiduciaries of the generalized symbolic medium of papers. Recent large-scale bibliometric analyses show these roles underpin continued strong growth. Far from decline, university-driven scientization globally sustains scale and quality in mature scientific systems.