Can Scientific Communities Profit from Evaluative Diversity?

Current models of scientific inquiry assume that scientists all share the same evaluative standards. However, scientists often rely on different yet legitimate ones, a feature we call evaluative diversity. We investigate how scientific success is affected by diversity in evaluative standards through computer-based simulations. Our results show that communities with diverse standards benefit substantially from scientists sharing all the approaches they explored, regardless of whether they considered them valuable. Moreover, we find that even a moderate degree of evaluative diversity can, under certain conditions, lead scientists to reach more satisfying results than those they would reach in homogeneous communities.