MEASUREMENT OF SOCIAL-STRATIFICATION - A CONTRIBUTION TO THE DISPUTE ON THE ORTEGA HYPOTHESIS

Some discussion papers about the ORTEGA hypothesis were published in Scientometrics. One, aspect of these discussions was the necessity for the future extension of empirical research to pin a better foundation for the acceptance of refutation of the Ortega hypothesis which states that the research done by average scientists substantially contributes to the advance of science. In this direction an empirical study about the stratification in coauthorship networks is represented in this paper. It was tested whether the extent of stratification decreases with the increasing number of coauthors per paper.