random drift versus selection in academic vocabulary an evolutionary analysis of published keywords随机漂变与选择发表的学术词汇的进化分析中关键字.pdfVIP

Random Drift versus Selection in Academic Vocabulary: An Evolutionary Analysis of Published Keywords R. Alexander Bentley* Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham, United Kingdom Abstract The evolution of vocabulary in academic publishing is characterized via keyword frequencies recorded in the ISI Web of Science citations database. In four distinct case-studies, evolutionary analysis of keyword frequency change through time is compared to a model of random copying used as the null hypothesis, such that selection may be identified against it. The case studies from the physical sciences indicate greater selection in keyword choice than in the social sciences. Similar evolutionary analyses can be applied to a wide range of phenomena; wherever the popularity of multiple items through time has been recorded, as with web searches, or sales of popular music and books, for example. Citation: Bentley RA (2008) Random Drift versus Selection in Academic Vocabulary: An Evolutionary Analysis of Published Keywords. PLoS ONE 3(8): e3057. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0003057 Editor: Colin Allen, Indiana University, United States of America Received June 13, 2008; Accepted August 5, 2008; Published August 27, 2008 Copyright: 2008 Bentley. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Funding: The author has no support or funding to report. Competing Interests: The author has declared that no competing interests exist. * E-mail: r.a.bentley@durham.ac.uk Introduction those ideas. In either case, the transmission process is evolutionary;