Recommend Cancer Biology & Therapy to your librarian for 2008. Download the form here.

Sign up for Table of Contents Alerts.

home subscribe search archive forthcoming

Email this page Print this page

Research Philosophy

Stagnation and Herd Mentality in the Biomedical Sciences

Jonathan R. Brody and Scott E. Kern

volume 3 | issue 9

september 2004
Pages: 903-910

We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:

 Download PDF

If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.

Academic biomedical science is like music, painting, or other fashionable arts and politics. Concepts that are perceived to be ‘in’ can become widely accepted and then stagnate, remaining unchallenged for many years, independent of their scientific validity. Fads in biomedical science have been observed to last for years or decades. The reasons for herd mentality and stagnation are manifold, but their recognition allows opportunities for constructive awareness and perhaps effective countermeasures.




We now provide open access to journal articles published online for one year or more. This article may be downloaded at the following link:

 Download PDF

If the document does not open, please right-click on the link (control-click on a Macintosh) and select the option to save the file to disk.