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The Scientific Ethos : A deviant viewpoint

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

S. B. Barnes  and
R. G. A. Dolby
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Extract

The study of science and scientists has attracted sociologists, to any significant extent, only in the last quarter of a century. The earliest papers of any importance in the field are probably those of Robert Merton, written in the late 1930's and early 1940's; Merton's ideas have been extremely influential with all subsequent contributors and it is probably no exaggeration to state that the literature of the subject has been overwhelmingly concerned with the development and extension of Merton's original insights. Certainly in America the work of Barber, Storer, Marcson, Hagstrom, Kornhauser and Shils would seem to justify this contention. In Britain, the sociology of science is not studied as much, but the work of Cotgrove, although by no means ‘following’ Merton, freely acknowledges his influence.

Type
Research Article
Information
European Journal of Sociology / Archives Européennes de Sociologie , Volume 11 , Issue 1 , May 1970 , pp. 3 - 25
Copyright
Copyright © Archives Européenes de Sociology 1970

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References

(1) Merton, R. K., Science and Democratic Social Structure, Social Theory and Social Structure (Glencoe, Free Press, 1957), p. 551Google Scholar.

(2) Ibid. p. 553.

(3) Ibid. p. 556.

(4) Ibid. p. 558.

(5) Storer, N., The Social System of Science (New York, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966), p. 79Google Scholar.

(6) Barber, B., Science and the Social Order (New York, Collier, 1962), p. 126Google Scholar.

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(13) See for example, Barber, op. cit. chapter III.

(14) Downey, K. J., Sociology and the Modern Scientific Revolution, Sociological Quarterly, VIII (1967), pp. 239 sqqCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(15) Krohn, R. G., The Institutional Location of the Scientist and his Scientific Values, I.R.E. Transactions on Engineering Management EM-8 (1961), pp. 133–138Google Scholar.

(16) Box, S. and Cotgrove, S., Scientific Identity, Occupational Selection and Role Strain, British Journal of Sociology, XVII (1966), pp. 20–28CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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(19) Lukes, S., Some Problems about Rationality, European Journal of Sociology, VIII (1967), pp. 247 sqqCrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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(21) Kuhn, T. S., The Function of Dogma in Scientific Research, in Crombie, A. C. (ed.), Scientific Change (London, Heinemann, 1963), pp. 347–369Google Scholar.

(22) See for example Kuhn, T. S., The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago, Univ. of Chicago Press, 1962)Google Scholar, chaps ii–v.

(23) Hagstrom, W. O., The Scientific Community (New York, Basic Books, 1965), p. 10Google Scholar.

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(26) Parsons, T., The Social System (New York, Free Press, 1951)Google Scholar.

(27) See for example Edge, D. (ed.), Experiment (London, B.B.C., 1964)Google Scholar.

(28) Merton, , Science and Democratic Social Structure, op. cit. p. 552Google Scholar.

(29) A comparative treatment of the incidence of anthropomorphic and impersonal cosmologies has been given by DrDouglas, Mary, Natural Symbols (London, Crosset Press, 1970)Google Scholar.

(30) For recent discussions of this, see Cardwell, D.S.L., The Organisation of Science in England (London, Heinemann, 1957)Google Scholar;Mendelsohn, E., The Emergence of Science as a Profession in Nineteenth-Century Europe, in Hill, Karl B. (ed.), The Management of Scientists (Boston, Beacon Press, 1964)Google Scholar.

(31) See for example Lavoisier's comment on his action, quoted by Whewell, W., History of the Inductive Sciences (London 1837), vol. III, p. 131Google Scholar.

(32) For example, some of those reacting to Babbage's, C.Observations on the Decline of Science in England (1830)Google Scholar pointed out that English science was much freer than the French. Political belief in the non-intervention of the state often extended to science and scientific education. Cardwell comments that many Victorians seemed to believe that th e State could do no right. See D.S.L. Cardwell, especially p. 56. Buckle, H. T. could argue in his History of Civilization in England (1857–1861)Google Scholar that the decline of French science in the late seventeenth century was largely due to the evils of the patronage of Louis XIV.

(33) Ben-David, J. and Zloczower, A., Universities and Academic Systems in Modern Societies, European Journal of Sociology, III (1962), 45–84CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(34) Perkin, W. H., Hofmann Memorial Lecture, Journal of the Chemical Society, LXIX (1896), 596–637CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(35) Merton, R. K. and Barber, E., Sociological Ambivalence, in Tirya-Kian, E. A. (ed.), Sociological Theory, Values and Socio-Cultural Change (London, Collier-Macmillan, 1963)Google Scholar.

(36) Merton, R. K., The Ambivalence of Scientists, in Kaplan, N. (ed.), Science and Society (Chicago, Rand McNally, 1965), p. 112Google Scholar.

(37) Ibid. p. 113.

(38) Merton, R. K., Priorities in Scientific Discovery, American Sociological Review, XXII (1957), p. 635CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

(39) Merton, , The Ambivalence of Scientists, op. cit. p. 113Google Scholar.

(40) See for example Merton, Priorities in Scientific Discovery, op. cit. and Singletons and Multiples in Scientific Discovery, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, CV (1961), 470–486Google Scholar; also Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, op. cit. and Energy Conservation as an example of Simultaneous Discovery, in Clagett, M. (ed.), Critical Problems in the History of Science (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 1959), pp. 321–356Google Scholar.

(41) Williams, L. Pearce, Michael Faraday: A Biography (London, Chapman and Hall, 1965), p. 491Google Scholar.

(42) Kuhn, , The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, op. cit. pp. 53 sqqGoogle Scholar.Id. Historical Structure of Scientific Discovery, Science, CXXXVI (1962), p. 760Google Scholar.

(43) Merton, Priorities in Scientific Discovery, op. cit. In. Resistance to the Systematic Study of Multiple Discoveries in Science, European Journal of Sociology, IV (1963), p. 237Google Scholar.

(44) Merton, , The Ambivalence of Scientists, op. cit. p. 125Google Scholar.

(45) Zuckerman, H. A., The Nobel Laureates in the United States. A Sociological Study of Scientific Collaboration. (Unpublished Dissertation, Columbia University, 1965)Google Scholar.

(46) Merton, , The Ambivalence of Scientists, op. cit. p. 130Google Scholar.

(47) de Solla Price, D. J., Little Science, Big Science (New York, Columbia University Press, 1963)Google Scholar.

(48) For another approach stressing how paradigms in themselves constitute norms of scientific activity, see Muckay, M., Social Research, XXXVI (1969), 32–52Google Scholar.