Cumulative science
Definition: Goal of any empirical science, it is the pursuit of “the construction of a cumulative base of knowledge upon which the future of the science may be built” (Curran, 2009, p. 1). The idea that science will create more complete and accurate theories as a function of the amount of evidence and data that has been collected. Cumulative science develops in gradual and incremental steps, as opposed to one abrupt discovery. While revolutionary science occurs scarcely, cumulative science is the most common form of science.
Related term: Slow Science
References:
- Curran, P. J. (2009). The seemingly quixotic pursuit of a cumulative psychological science: Introduction to the special issue. Psychological Methods, 14(2), 77–80. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0015972
- d’Espagnat, B. (2008). Is science cumulative? A physicist viewpoint. In Rethinking Scientific Change and Theory Comparison (pp. 145–151). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6279-7_10
- Kuhn, T. (1962). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press.
- Mischel, W. (2009). Becoming a Cumulative Science. Association for Psychological Science. https://www.psychologicalscience.org/observer/becoming-a-cumulative-science
Originally drafted by: Beatrice Valentini
Reviewed by: Sarah Ashcroft-Jones, Mahmoud Elsherif, Helena Hartmann, Oscar Lecuona, Wanyin Li, Sonia Rishi, Flávio Azevedo