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Agreed with the first paragraph, but I think this sort of behavior is normal for most disciplines. That is, it's not CS looking like psychology or sociology, it's normal for CS to do this. I think we're seeing a similar thing right now in biology with CRISPR.

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FWIW, CRISPR isn't a great analogy. It's a well understood mechanism, and not really all that different from standard genome editing techniques like restriction enzymes, zinc-finger nucleases, etc. It's new and flashy and super powerful -- and the applications of CRISPR are still being discovered -- but the mechanism is understood and simple.

That wasn't the aspect I was going for. More for a period of incremental improvements in understanding, from which emerges a particular thing with enormous potential, and then the field is dominated by applications of that new thing.

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