MERTON - LIVRO - The Sociology of ScienceInvestigations

The 
Sociology 
of 
Science 
By the Same Author 
Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth-Century England 
Mass Persuasion [with Marjorie Fiske and Alberta Curtis] 
Social Theory and Social Structure 
The Focused Interview [with Marjorie Fiske and Patricia Kendall] 
The Freedom to Read [with Richard McKeon and Walter Gellhorh] 
On the Shoulders of Giants 
On Theoretical Sociology 
Sociological Ambivalence 
Sociology of Science: An Episodic Memoir 
Continuities in Social Research [with Paul F. Lazarsfeld] 
Reader in Bureaucracy [with Ailsa Gray, Barbara Hockey, and 
Hanan Selvin] 
The Student-Physician [with George G. Reader and Patricia L. Kendall] 
Sociology Today [with Leonard Broom and Leonard S. Cottrell, Jr.] 
Contemporary Social Problems [with Robert A. Nisbet] 
The Sociology of Science in Europe [with Jerry Gaston] 
Toward a Metric of Science [with Yehuda Elkana, Joshua Lederberg, 
Arnold Thackray, and Harriet Zuckerman] 
Qualitative and Quantitative Social Research: Papers in Honor of 
Paul F. Lazarfeld [with James S. Coleman and Peter H. Ross] 
Robert K. 
Merton 
Edited and 
with an Introduction by 
Norman W. Storer 
The University of Chicago Press 
Chicago and London 
The 
Sociology 
of 
Science 
Theoretical and 
Empirical 
Investigations 
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637 
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London 
<D 1973 by Robert K. Merton 
All rights reserved. Published 1973. 
Printed in the United States of America 
International Standard Book Number: 0-22(r..52091-9 (cloth); 
0-22(r..52092-7 (paper) 
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 72-97623 
96 95 94 93 4 5 6 7 
To my teachers Pitirim A. Sorokin 
Talcott Parsons 
George Sarton 
L. J. Henderson 
A. N. Whitehead 
who together formed 
my interest in the 
sociological study of 
science 
Contents 
Author's Preface ix 
Introduction by Norman W. Storer xt 
The Sociology of 
Knowledge 
Prefatory Note 3 
1. Paradigm for the Sociology of 
Knowledge 7 
2. Znaniecki's Social Role of the 
Man of Knowledge 41 
3. Social Conflict over Styles of 
Sociological Work 47 
4. Technical and Moral Dimen-
sions of Policy Research 70 
5. The Perspectives of Insiders 
and Outsiders 99 
The Sociology of 
Scientific Knowledge 
Prefatory Note 139 
6. Sorokin's Formulations in the 
Sociology of Science 142 
[with Bernard Barber] 
7. Social and Cultural Contexts of 
Science 173 
8. Changing Foci of Interest in 
the Sciences and 
Technology 191 
9. Interactions of Science and 
Military Technique 204 
I 0. The Neglect of the Sociology 
of Science 2 I 0 
viii Contents 
3 The Normative Structure of Science 
PrefatoryNote 223 
11. The Puritan Spur to 
Science 228 
12. Science and the Social 
Order 254 
13. The Normative Structure of 
Science 267 
The Processes of 
Evaluation in Science 
Prefatory Note 415 
19. Recognition and Excellence: 
Instructive Ambiguities 419 
20. The Matthew Effect in 
Science 439 
21. Institutionalized Patterns of 
Evaluation in Science 460 
[with Harriet Zuckerman] 
22. Age, Aging, and Age Structure 
in Science 497 
[with Harriet Zuckerman] 
Bibliography 561 
Index of Names 577 
Index of Subjects 587 
4 The Reward System of Science 
Prefatory Note 281 
14. Priorities in Scientific 
Discovery 286 
15. Behavior Patterns of 
Scientists 325 
16. Singletons and Multiples in 
Science 343 
17. Multiple Discoveries as 
Strategic Research Site 371 
18. The Ambivalence of 
Scientists 383 
Author's Preface 
After a long gestation, the sociology of science has finally emerged as a 
distinct sociological specialty. Having evolved a cognitive identity in the 
form of intellectual orientations, paradigms, problematics and tools of 
inquiry, it has begun to develop a professional identity as well, in the form 
of institutionalized arrangements for research and training, journals given 
over to the subject in part or whole, and invisible colleges of specialists 
engaged in mutually related inquiry and not infrequent controversy. In 
these as in its other aspects, the sociology of science exhibits a strongly 
self-exemplifying character: its own behavior as a discipline exemplifies 
current ideas and findings about the emergence of scientific specialties. 
In the light of this development, there is now more point than before 
in taking up the suggestion of Michael Aronson of the University of 
Chicago Press to bring together some of my papers in the sociology of 
science which are presently scattered in various journals, symposia, and 
other books. Still, like Alfred Schutz facing a similar decision, I must 
recognize that few of us can bring to our own work the distance and 
hopefully exacting judgment of an informed editor. I am therefore in-
debted to Professor Norman W. Storer for agreeing to select and arrange 
the papers, to provide the general introduction and prefatory notes, and 
to eliminate repetition except when, in his opinion, it provides redundancy 
useful for highlighting continuities of theme and idea. Having contributed 
to the field for more than a decade, Professor Storer is thoroughly at home 
in it and able to put these perspectives on the sociological study of science 
into historical and intellectual context. 
X 
Reiteration would only dull the thanks I express in the individual papers 
to the many who have helped me get on with my work in this field. But 
there are other, current debts. I thank Richard Lewis for help in reading 
the proofs of this book, and Mary Miles and Hedda Garza for preparing 
the index. I owe special thanks to my colleagues Bernard Barber, Harriet 
Zuckerman, and Richard Lewis for allowing me to reprint our joint 
papers, and to Elinor Barber for allowing me to draw upon our published 
and unpublished collaborative work. I gladly acknowledge the help given 
me by a fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Founda-
tion, by a term as Visiting Scholar of the Russell Sage Foundation and, 
more recently, by a grant from the National Science Foundation in sup-
port of the Columbia University Program in the Sociology of Science. 
I, for one, must testify to the growing worth of that program as I agree-
ably observe that my colleagues in it-Harriet Zuckerman, Stephen Cole, 
and Jonathan Cole-have come to teach me increasingly more than I 
have ever been capable of teaching them. I have also benefitted much 
from the thought and friendship of William J. Goode since those distant 
days when we first worked together in the sociology of the professions. 
And in this latest retrospect, I discover once again how much I have 
learned from Paul F. Lazarsfeld, in joint seminars, in other joint ventures 
and, most of all, from our continuing dialogue through the years. 
R. K. M. 
Introduction 
By Norman W. Storer 
If Robert K. Merton has not yet been publicly described as a founding 
father of the sociology of science, there is at least substantial agreement 
among those who know the field that its present strength and vitality are 
largely the result of his labors over the past forty years. His work has given 
the discipline its major paradigm. This judgment is perhaps most decisively 
affirmed when set forth not by the many whose work is guided by that 
paradigm but by those who find fault with some aspect of it. Barry Barnes, 
for instance, who with R. G. A. Dolby1 has strongly argued the case against 
certain assumptions in the paradigm, sums things up by observing that 
A dominant influence in this development [of the sociology of science as a 
separate academic specialty] was the work of Robert Merton, both as writer 
and teacher. By 1945 Merton had laid down an approach which identified 
science as a social institution with a characteristic ethos, and subjected it to 
functional analysis. This was for a long period the only theoretical approach 
available to sociologists in the area, and it remains productive and influential 
today. Its central ideas have received detailed elaboration, modification