Problem areas and research networks in science

Sociology

Volumn 9, Issue 2, 1975, Pages 187-203

  Mulkay, M J ^a   Gilbert, G N ^a   Woolgar, S ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF YORK   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84970382212     PISSN: 00380385     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/003803857500900201     Document Type: Article

References (58)

1. See Derek J. de Solla Price, Little Science, Big Science. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. This paper, however, deals only with the highly institutionalized science of the twentieth century.
2. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago University Press, 1970 (2nd edition).
3. Versions of this pattern of growth have been described by: D. J. de Solla Price, ‘Networks of Scientific Papers’, Science, 149, 30 July 1965, pp. 510-5.
4. A. Koestler, The Act of Creation, London: Hutchinson 1969, Ch. 10.
5. M. J. Mulkay, ‘Conformity and Innovation in Science’, Sociological Review Monograph 18, 1972, pp. 5-24.
6. This has also been argued by Nicholas C. Mullins. See, for example, ‘The development of Specialties in Social Science: The Case of Ethnomethodology',’, Science Studies, 3, 1973, p. 246ff.
7. e.g. Nicholas C. Mullins, ‘The Development of a Scientific Specialty: The Phage Group the Origins of Molecular Biology',’, Minerva, 10, January 1972, pp. 51-82.
8. David L. Krantz, ‘The Separate Worlds of Operant and Non Operant Psychology’, Journal of Applied Behaviourial Analysis, 4, 1971, pp. 61-70.
9. C. S. Fisher, ‘The Last Invariant Theorists’, European Journal of Sociology, 8, 1967, pp. 216-44.
10. John Law, ‘The Development of Specialties in Science: The Case of X-ray Crystallography',’, Science Studies, 3, 1973, pp. 275-303.
11. e.g. R. K. Merton, ‘Priorities in Scientific Discovery’, American Sociological Review, 22, 1957, pp. 635-59.
12. Two studies deserve particular mention: G. Holton, ‘Models for Understanding the Growth and Excellence of Scientific Research',’, in S. R. Graubard and G. Holton (eds.): Excellence and Leadership in a Democracy, New York: Columbia University Press, 1962.
13. Diana Crane, Invisible Colleges, University of Chicago Press, 1972.
14. M. J. Mulkay and D. O. Edge, ‘Cognitive, Technical and Social Factors in the growth of Radio Astronomy',’, Information Sur Les Sciences Sociales, 12 (6), 1973, pp. 25-61.
15. G. Nigel Gilbert, ‘The development of Science and Scientific Knowledge: The Case of radar meteor research',’, paper presented at the Parex Project Conference, 19 December 1973, and forthcoming in the Conference Proceedings.
16. Summarized in G. Nigel Gilbert and Steve Woolgar, ‘The Quantitative Study of Science: An examination of the literature',’, Science Studies, 4, 1974, pp. 279-294.
17. N. Storer, The Social System of Science, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1966.
18. The communication systems of the scientific community are described in: William D. Garvey, Nan Lin, and Carnot E. Nelson, ‘Communication in Physical and Social Sciences’, Science, 170, 11 December 1970, pp. 1166-73.
19. in greater detail, for psychology, in: William D. Garvey and Belver C. Griffith, ‘Communications in a Science: The System and its Modifications’, in A. de Rueck and J. Knight (eds.) Ciba Foundation symposium on communication in science: Documentation and automation, London: Churchill, 1967.
20. See for example H. and S. Rose, Science and Society, Penguin Books, 1969.
21. Diana Crane, ‘Social Structure in a Group of Scientists: A Test of the Invisible College Hypothesis',’, American Sociological Review 34, 1969, pp. 335-52.
22. Susan Crawford, ‘Informal communication among scientists in Sleep Research’, Journal of the American Society of Information Science, 22, 1971, pp. 301-10.
23. J. Gaston, ‘Communication and the Reward System of Science: A Study of a National “Invisible College” ‘,’, Sociological Review Monograph, 18, 1972, pp. 25-42.
24. Nicholas C. Mullins, ‘The Distribution of Social and Cultural Properties in Informal Communication Networks among Biological Scientists',’, American Sociological Review, 33, 1968, pp. 786-797.
25. Communication among Biological Scientists. Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1967.
26. Derek J. de Solla Price and Donald de B. Beaver, ‘Collaboration in an Invisible College’, American Psychologist 21, 1966, pp. 1011-8.
27. W. D. Garvey and B. C. Griffith estimate, from a study of the literature of psychology, that the immediate audience for most articles is usually no more than 200 readers. (‘Scientific information exchange in psychology’, Science, 146, 1966, pp. 1955-9.)
28. M. Swatez, ‘The Social Organization of a University Laboratory’, Minerva, 8, 1970 pp. 36-58).
29. N. Kaplan, ‘The norm of citation behaviour’, American Documentation, 16, 1965, pp. 179-84.
30. cf. J. A. Barnes ‘Class and Communities in a Norwegian Island Parish’, Human Relations, 8, 1954, 39-58.
31. J. Ziman, Public Knowledge, London, Cambridge University Press, 1968, ch. 4.
32. M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1958.
33. The importance of scientists who were marginal in some way is also pointed out in case studies of the emergence of psychology (J. Ben-David and Randall Collins, ‘Social Factors in the Origins of a New Science’, American Sociological Review, 31, 1966, pp. 451-465), bacteriology and psychoanalysis (Joseph Ben-David, ‘Roles and Innovations in Medicine’, American Journal of Sociology, 65, 1960, pp. 557-60), and physical chemistry (R. G. A. Dolby, ‘Social Factors in the Origin of a New Science: the Case of Physical Chemistry',’, unpublished paper, Department of Philosophy, University of Leeds).
34. Some information on the mobility of scientists is reported by: William D. Garvey and Kazuo Tomita, ‘Continuity of productivity by scientists in the years 1969-71’, Science Studies, 2, 1972, 379-83.
35. R. McGinnis and V. P. Singh, ‘Mobility Patterns in Three Scientific Disciplines’, Paper presented to A.S.A., New Orleans, Louisiana, August 28-31, 1972.
36. H. A. Zuckerman, ‘The Sociology of the Nobel Prizes’, Scientific American, 217, 1967, pp. 25-33.
37. See for example, D. O. Edge and M. J. Mulkay, A Preliminary Report on the Emergence of Radio Astronomy in Britain, Cambridge University Engineering Department, CUED/A-Mgt. Stud/TR8, 1972, Ch. 8, on the discovery of pulsars.
38. See for example J. Law, Specialties in Science: A sociological study of X-ray crystallography, Doctoral dissertation, University of Edinburgh, 1972, on the emergence of protein X-ray crystallography.
39. Fred Reif and Anselm Strauss, ‘The impact of rapid discovery upon the scientist's career’, Social Problems, 12, 1964, pp. 297-311.
40. See also Gerard Lemaine and Benjamin Matalon, ‘La lutte pour la vie dans la cité scientifique’, Revue Francaise de Sociologie, 10, 1969, pp. 139-165.
41. Stephen Cole and Jonathan Cole (‘Scientific Output and Recognition: A study of the reward system in science',’, American Sociological Review, 32, 1967, pp. 377-390) find correlations between quality and quantity of papers published and the honours won by authors.
42. For an example of the influence of the availability of funds on the growth of a new field, see W. I. Jenkins and I. Velody, ‘Behavioural science models for the growth of interdisciplinary fields: the cases of biophysics and oceanography',’, Unpublished study for O.E.C.D., Department of Social Sciences and Economics, Loughborough, 1969.
43. E.L. Hess (‘The Origins of Molecular Biology’, Science, 168, May 1970, pp. 664-9) argues that the ‘roots of the molecular approach to biology penetrate the past more deeply than many appreciate’ and shows that the emergence of molecular biology depended on the prior success of a range of chemical and biological experiments, whose significance was not appreciated at the time.
44. See also E. A. Carlson, ‘An unacknowledged founding of Molecular Biology-H. J. Muller's contribution to Gene Theory',’, 1910-30, Journal of the History of Biology, 4, 1971, pp. 149-70.
45. Gunther Stent, ‘The Premature and the Unique in Scientific Discovery’, Proceedings of the Conference on the History of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 21-23 May, 1970, Brookline, Massachusetts: The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, pp. 29-45.
46. Nicholas C. Mullins, private communication.
47. The notion of negotiation among scientists is used, in a similar way, in H. M. Collins, ‘The Seven Sexes: The Sociology of Phenomena with examples from Science',’, unpublished paper, University of Bath, 1973, p. 15 et passim.
48. Harriet Zuckerman, ‘Stratification in American Science’, Sociological Enquiry, 40, 1970, pp. 235-57.
49. Robert K. Merton ‘ “Recognition” and “Excellence”: Instructive Ambiguities',’, in Edgar Stern (ed.), Recognition of Excellence, Glencoe: Free Press, 1960, pp. 297-328.
50. Stephen Cole and Jonathan R. Cole, ‘Visibility and the Structural Bases of Awareness of Scientific Research',’, American Sociological Review, 33, 1968, pp. 397-413.
51. R. K. Merton, ‘The Matthew Effect in Science’, Science, 159, 1968, pp. 56-63.
52. e.g. H. A. Zuckerman, ‘Nobel Laureates in Science’, American Sociological Review, 32, 1967, p. 401.
53. e.g. in ionospheric physics: C. S. Gilmour and C. J. Terman, ‘Communication modes of Geophysics: The case of ionospheric physics',’, EOS, 54, 1973, p. 901.
54. Jerry Gaston, ‘Secretiveness and Competition for Priority of Discovery in Physics',’, Minerva, 9, 1971, p. 479.
55. Nicholas C. Mullins, Theories and Theory Groups in Contemporary American Sociology, New York: Harper and Row, 1973.
56. See the discussion of leadership roles in Belver C. Griffiths and Nicholas C. Mullins, ‘Coherent Social Groups in Scientific Change’, Science, 177, 15 September 1972, p. 961.
57. Kuhn maintains that a sequence similar to this occurs with considerable frequency at all levels of social organization in science. It is surprising therefore that, despite the great interest aroused by his thesis, very few, if any, examples have been added during the last decade to those originally described by Kuhn himself. David S. Palermo, Science Studies, I, 1971, pp. 135-55 (‘Is a Scientific Revolution Taking Place in Psychology?') has argued that such a revolution has taken place in psychology. However, this view has been vigorously contested, notably by Neil Warren ('Is a scientific revolution taking place in psychology?-Doubts and Reservations',’, Science Studies, 1, 1971, pp. 407-13) and L. B. Briskman (‘Is a Kuhnian analysis applicable to psychology?’, Science Studies, 2, 1972, pp. 87-97).
58. M. J. Mulkay, The Social Process of Innovation, London: Macmillan, 1972.