Revisiting the Construction of Knowledge in Science

The "truths" of science are achievements of communication in which scientists come to accept the claims of other scientists based on supporting evidence.A process describing how knowledge is constructed in the sciences via the summarizing and synthesizing of information in review articles was proposed by Noguchi in 2006 (The Science Review Article: An Opportune Genre in the Construction of Science.Bern: Peter Lang).However, in view of the rapidly increasing pace of online dissemination of information, this process appears to be undergoing a change.The present study reexamines the process of knowledge construction in science by investigating how viewpoints in the sciences are disseminated via news sources based on citation metrics, which gauge the impact that the information has on the general public.Based on the current findings, a new process is proposed that takes into account the rapid dissemination of information and also calls for some form of curating the knowledge to be accepted.