Let's pension off the “major breakthrough”

Look, I know we all love lists, competitions, prizes, and so on and that choosing the top 15 milestones in medicine is just a bit of fun. But, like the artistic and literary types who get sniffy about the Turner prize for art and the Orange prize for fiction, I'm going to be po-faced and argue that in one respect this enterprise is not only daft but damaging. It plays to the “breakthrough” view of science: a wholly misguided notion that seeks to portray science as a kind of intellectual trawler. Under the guidance of its steersmen—the elite scientists high up on the bridge—the vessel charts a steady and calculated course across our sea of ignorance. Triumphant figures call down periodically to report that they have fished out another drifting barrel of knowledge and have drunk of the wisdom discovered therein. When what's found in the barrel is deemed exceptionally valuable—a “major breakthrough”—the crew members win medals. In reality there is not one vessel but many; not one course but a thousand. And the information …