Jonah Lehrer has posted a reply to criticisms of his article on the ‘decline effect’ in science. It doesn’t work, and his arguments miss the mark. As I said, what the statistics show is that science is difficult, and sometimes answers are very hard to come by; that does not justify his attempt to couch the problem in language that suggests a systematic failure of science.
John Allen Paulos is saying the same thing. You can trust him, he’s a professional mathematician.