Diversity, Rationality, and the Division of Cognitive Labor

Abstract

Existing models of the division of cognitive labor in science assume that scientists have a particular problem they want to solve and can choose between different approaches to solving the problem. In this essay I invert the approach, supposing that scientists have fixed skills and seek problems to solve. This allows for a better explanation of increasing rates of cooperation in science, as well as flows of scientists between fields of inquiry. By increasing the realism of the model, we gain additional insight into the social structure of science and gain the ability to ask new questions about the optimal division of labor.