Intellectual inflation: one way for scientific research to degenerate

Abstract

This paper aims to analyze a specific way in which a scientific programme or area can, in Lakatosian terms, degenerate: namely, through a developmental process of intellectual inflation. Adopting a pluralist approach to the notion of scientific progress, we propose that the historical development of a particular scientific area can be analyzed as being intellectually inflationary during a bounded period of time if it has considerably increased its productive output (thus demonstrating productive progressive) while the overall semantic or epistemic value of those products have not improved in a significant fashion (thus lacking progress in a semantic or epistemic sense). Then, we apply this concept to thoroughly assess whether there have been some intellectually inflationary patterns in the development of (i) information-theoretical evolutionary biology in 1961–2023, and (ii) ensemblist non-equilibrium statistical mechanics in 1938–2023. And finally, we argue that tracking and analyzing intellectually inflationary patterns in the history of sciences might contribute to vindicate a non-productivist picture of current scientific research.