Robust Evidence for Declining Disruptiveness: Assessing the Role of Zero-Backward-Citation Works

We respond to Holst et al.'s (HATWG) critique that the observed decline in scientific disruptiveness demonstrated in Park et al. (PLF) stems from including works with zero backward citations (0-bcites). Applying their own advocated dataset, metric, and exclusion criteria, we demonstrate statistically and practically significant declines in disruptiveness that equal major benchmark transformations in science. Notably, we show that HATWG's own regression model -- designed specifically to address their concerns about 0-bcite works -- reveals highly significant declines for both papers (p<0.001) and patents (p<0.001), a finding they neither acknowledge nor interpret. Their critique is undermined by methodological deficiencies, including reliance on visual inspection without statistical assessment, and severe data quality issues in their SciSciNet dataset, which contains nearly three times more 0-bcite papers than our original data. HATWG's departure from established scientometric practices -- notably their inclusion of document types and fields known for poor metadata quality -- invalidates their conclusions. Monte Carlo simulations and additional analyses using multiple disruptiveness measures across datasets further validate the robustness of the declining trend. Our findings collectively demonstrate that the observed decline in disruptiveness is not an artifact of 0-bcite works but represents a substantive change in scientific and technological innovation patterns.