What Happens When Underperforming Big Ideas in Research Become Entrenched? Viewpoint

JAMA (partial view)

This Viewpoint provides evidence for the dominance of the narrative that a combination of subcellular biology knowledge coupled with information technology will lead to improvements in health care and human health being published among biomedical funding and journal publications; discusses themes embedded in the narrative to show that this approach has failed; and proposes a reevaluation of the way forward in biomedical research.

For several decades now the biomedical research community has pursued a narrative positing that a combination of ever-deeper knowledge of subcellular biology, especially genetics, coupled with information technology will lead to transformative improvements in health care and human health. In this Viewpoint, we provide evidence for the extraordinary dominance of this narrative in biomedical funding and journal publications; discuss several prominent themes embedded in the narrative to show that this approach has largely failed; and propose a wholesale reevaluation of the way forward in biomedical research.

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