MIT Leads in Revolutionary Science, Harvard Declines

Bruce G Charlton writes "In three studies looking at the best institutions for 'revolutionary' science, MIT emerged as best in the world. This contrasts with 'normal science' which incrementally-extends science in pre established directions." If you're interested in reading more about how this was determined, read more below.

"My approach has been to look at trends in the award of science Nobel prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine/ Physiology and Economics — the Nobel metric) — then to expand this Nobel metric by including some similar awards. The NFLT metric adds-in Fields medal (mathematics), Lasker award for clinical medicine and the Turing award for computing science. The NLG metric is specifically aimed at measuring revolutionary biomedical science and uses the Nobel medicine, the Lasker clinical medicine and the Gairdner International award for biomedicine. MIT currently tops the tables for all three metrics: the Nobel prizes, the NFLT and the NLG. There seems little doubt it has been the premier institution of revolutionary science in the world over recent years. Also very highly ranked are Stanford, Columbia, Chicago, Caltech, Berkeley, Princeton and — in biomedicine — University of Washington at Seattle and UCSF. The big surprise is that Harvard has declined from being the top Nobel prizewinners from 1947-1986, to sixth place for Nobels; seventh for NFLT, and Harvard doesn't even reach the threshold of three awards for the biomedical NLG metric! This is despite Harvard massively dominating most of the 'normal science' research metrics (eg. number of publications and number of citations per year) — and probably implies that Harvard may have achieved very high production of scientific research at the expense of quality at the top-end."

MIT is best at re-appropriation.

[ehack]

I remember an article in the NY Times about Tim Berners Lee:

Time Berner's Lee, a physicist at MIT who invented the world-wide-web ...

Re:For how long?

[Noehre]

> As far as Harvard vs MIT, Harvard's medical, law, and business schools are still highly prestigious. I don't know of anybody who went to MIT to study those fields, although I'm sure they offer them (at least undergrad level equivalents).

MIT's Sloan is the 4th ranked business school in the nation...

I disagree

[TheObruniSpeaks]

I'm currently a (male) course 8 grad student at MIT, working in the Media Lab. My group is very much a counterexample to this theory. We're roughly 50% women, and we're doing bleeding edge stuff that will either fall on its face or change the world. One interesting thing to note is that the women in the group aren't testosterone-laden, cut-throat man-wannabe's, either. They're intelligent women with the courage to try something that might fail. I watched a lot of men walk away from this incredible opportunity out of fear for their future.

Now, all this (Harvard and MIT women in general) is not where the issue starts. It may well be that female grad students tend to shy away from the scariest projects, but that possible tendency could be purely due to social norms. I can't be sure and neither can anybody else, because no woman or man has ever grown up without social norms.

What I do know is that in any research lab I've been in, the women there have pulled their weight and done good work. Also--and I think this is a point that often gets overlooked--I find the atmosphere and social interactions to be much better than a sausage fest. Obviously, a more cohesive working environment makes for better work output.

A couple other things about MIT and Harvard: MIT doesn't have a med school, but it does have two brain institutes, a genomics institute, a health science and technology program, various types of bioengineering... It does a lot of medical things in partnership with Harvard's med school. Med students' research isn't usually going to change the world. It's the MD-PhDs that want to do research foremost that will do that, and they very often get the PhD end of that from MIT.

Harvard *definitely* does science of all kinds. They are all things to all people. Well, the people who can't get into MIT anyway.

Re:Gatherers vs. Hunters

[Lemmy Caution]

And you seem to have taken no classes in dry humor. It's clearly tongue-in-cheek. What's worrisome is that no one else seems to have caught that.

Re:Gatherers vs. Hunters

[jpflip]

It is law/business/medicine oriented in that it has famous and excellent schools in those fields. However it is also more science-oriented than most of the Ivy league. Harvard physics, for example, is substantially more well-regarded than, say, Yale physics.