PARADIGM AGREEMENT AND LITERATURE OBSOLESCENCE: A COMPARATIVE STUDY IN THE LITERATURE OF THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS

According to Kuhn's The structure of scientific revolutions normal science makes progress under a unifying paradigm while the humanities flounder among many competing paradigms. Bibliometric reference analysis is here used to test for evidence of this dichotomy in publishing and citation patterns. 227 critical (humanities) papers (with 13,355 references) drawn randomly from exhaustive Dead Sea Scrolls bibliographies are compared with 162 archaeological (scientific) papers (2,494 references) from the same population. References in critical papers (where‐lack of paradigm unity diffuses research and impedes assimilation of individual papers) in general (with and without inclusion of ancient classics) and articles in particular (with/without) are found, as hypothesised, to have significantly higher average ages than references in the archaeological papers. Reference density ratios adjusted for changes in number of citable and citing papers suggest no decline in use with age for critical sources as is true in archaeology. Archaeological, but not critical, references cluster on a research front and are concentrated in the years of data collection. Periodicals (not less‐timely monographs) account, as hypothesised, for significantly more archaeological than critical papers, references, and references in articles only.