1. A Historical Look at Unity 2. Field Guide to Modern Concepts of Reduction and Unity 3. Kitcher's Revisionist Account of Unification 4. Critics of Unity 5. Integration Instead of Unity 6. Reduction via Mechanisms 7. Case Studies in Reduction and Unification across the Disciplines.

How do scientific innovations spread within and across scientific communities? In this paper, we propose a general account of the diffusion of scientific innovations. This account acknowledges that novel ideas must be elaborated on and conceptually translated before they can be adopted and applied to field-specific problems. We motivate our account by examining an exemplary case of knowledge diffusion, namely, the early spread of theories of rational decision-making. These theories were grounded in a set of novel mathematical tools and concepts (...) that originated in John von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern's Theory of Games and Economic Behavior and subsequently spread widely across the social and behavioral sciences. Introducing a network-based diffusion measure, we trace the spread of those tools and concepts into distinct research areas. We furthermore present an analytically tractable typology for classifying publications according to their roles in the diffusion process. The proposed framework allows for a systematic examination of the conditions under which scientific innovations spread within and across preexisting and newly emerging scientific communities. (shrink)

Kitcher and Aspray distinguish a mainstream tradition in the philosophy of mathematics concerned with foundationalist epistemology, and a ‘maverick’ or naturalistic tradition, originating with Lakatos. My claim is that if the consequences of Lakatos's contribution are fully worked out, no less than a radical reconceptualization of the philosophy of mathematics is necessitated, including history, methodology and a fallibilist epistemology as central to the field. In the paper an interpretation of Lakatos's philosophy of mathematics is offered, followed by some critical discussion, (...) and an extension to a social constructivist position (which might well have been unacceptable to Lakatos). (shrink)

In the last decades, research in science mapping has delivered several powerful techniques, based on citation or textual analysis, for charting the intellectual organization of research fields. To map the social network underlying science and scholarship, by contrast, science mapping has mainly relied on one method, co-authorship analysis. This method, however, suffers from well-known limitations related to the practice of authorship. Moreover, it does not perform well on those fields where multi-authored publications are rare. In this study, a new method (...) for mapping the social structure of research fields is advanced, based on the analysis of the acknowledgments of academic publications. We first discuss the standard account of the function of acknowledgments in scholarly communication, then we introduce a new interpretative framework in which the acknowledgments are intended as positioning signals exchanged by researchers. Next, we provide the formal definition of the four acknowledgments-based networks that stand at the core of the method, and we test it on a humanities field, analytic philosophy. Results show that acknowledgement-based networks allow to reconstruct the fine-grained social structure of analytic philosophy from different perspectives. Furthermore, by comparing the citation-based maps of the field with the acknowledgments-based networks, it permits to shed light on the relationship between the intellectual and social layer of analytic philosophy. We conclude by presenting practical limitations of the method and by sketching some further research lines. (shrink)

Scientific communication takes place at two registers: first, interactions with colleagues in close proximity—members of a network, school of thought or circle; second, depersonalised transactions among a potentially unlimited number of scholars can be involved (e.g., author and readers). The interference between the two registers in the process of peer review produces a drift toward conflict of interest. Three particular cases of peer review are differentiated: journal submissions, grant applications and applications for tenure. The current conflict of interest policies do (...) not cover all these areas. Furthermore, they have a number of flaws, which involves an excessive reliance on scholars’ personal integrity. Conflicts of interest could be managed more efficiently if several elements and rules of the judicial process were accepted in science. The analysis relies on both primary and secondary data with a particular focus on Canada. (shrink)

The dissemination of experimental materials, instruments, and methods is central to the progress of research in genetics. In recent years, competition for research funding and intellectual property issues have increasingly presented barriers to the dissemination of this "research-related information. "Information gathered in interviews with experimental geneticists and analysis of acknowledgment patterns in published genetics research are used to construct a series of basic scenarios for the exchange of genetic materials and research methods. The discussion focuses on factors affecting individuals' behavior (...) and expectations as information requesters and information providers. (shrink)

In late 2009, e-mails from a server at the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia were released that showed some climate scientists in an unfavorable light. Soon this scandal was known as “Climategate” and a highly charged debate started to rage on blogs and in the mass media. Much of the debate has been about the question whether anthropogenic global warming was undermined by the revelations. But ethical issues, too, became part and parcel of the debate. This (...) article aims to contribute to this debate, assessing the e-mail affair in the light of two normative analyses of science, one proposed by Robert Merton, the second by a recent suggestion to use the concept of honest brokering in science policy interactions. On the basis of these analyses, different aspects of malpractice will be discussed and possible solutions will be suggested. (shrink)

Communication, as a discipline that generates a rich body of literature on CSR, has become a critical contributor to CSR knowledge in social science. However, limited research exists to understand how CSR knowledge is constructed and diffused in the discipline. This study thus intends to unpack the knowledge construction process of CSR research in the communication discipline from a network perspective. Invisible college was adopted as the conceptual framework. Article and theory/concept networks were constructed with 290 peer-reviewed articles from 61 (...) communication journals between 1980 and 2018. Results showed that in the past four decades, CSR literature in communication has been growing and maturing, as evidenced by the increasing volume and diversity of theories and concepts applied. Furthermore, this body of literature tends to gravitate toward certain selected groups of theories and concepts, resulting in denser article networks over time. Our findings reflected a substantial influence of management and psychological perspectives on CSR research in communication. Additionally, the results showed that public relations concepts and theories have influenced CSR research across different communication subfields such as advertising and organization communication. The study expects the continuation of the plurality of voices as to how communication researchers will approach CSR and what specific topics may gain popularity in future research. (shrink)

There has been some concern m recent years that economic interests in the biotechnology area could, particularly through patenting, have a constricting influence on scientific research. Despite this concern, there have been no studies of this phenomenon beyond isolated cases. In this article we examine the evolution of the biomedical field of hybridoma/monoclonal antibody research with detailed examples of the three types of patent claims that have emerged there—basic claims, claims on application techniques, and claims on specific antibodies. We analyze (...) the impact of these claims and their legal histories on the free flow of scientific information and, the activity of scientific researchers. We conclude that such patent claims present severe restrictions for both, not only in the monoclonal area but in general, amounting to a subtle but significant shift in the political economy of science and technology. (shrink)

This article analyzes international scientific collaboration in the context of the globalization of science and technology as a crossing point not only between local and global identities but also between scientific and sociocultural identities. It also elucidates how international collaboration—where middle scientific actors in the hierarchical multilayered center-periphery in the globalization of science and technology obtain advanced knowledge from core science and technology—takes place and structures the global division of research labor. This article emphasizes that we should develop the context (...) of the globalization of science and technology with dynamic and interdependent interactions between multistructured, core-periphery scientific actors. Dichotomous colonialist discourse is not a useful analytical tool in this context. The author found that sociocultural factors, including economic, cultural, organizational, and political ones, as well as the multilayered center-periphery in the globalization of science and technology, operate as forces that encourage international collaboration. (shrink)

Peer review of manuscripts has recently become a subject of academic research and ethical debate. Critics of the review process argue that it is a means by which powerful members of the scientific community maintain their power, and achieve their personal and communal aspirations, often at others' expense. This qualitative study aimed to generate a rich, empirically‐grounded understanding of the process of manuscript review, with a view to informing strategies to improve the review process. Open‐ended interviews were carried out with (...) 35 journal editors and peer reviewers in the United Kingdom, the USA and Australia. It is clear from this research that relations of power and epistemic authority in manuscript review are complex and dynamic, and may have positive and negative features, and that even where power is experienced as controlling, restrictive and illegitimate, it can also be resisted. In conclusion, the manuscript review process is best thought of not in terms of simple dominance of reviewers and editors over authors, but rather as a shifting “net” of power relations. These complex power relations need to be understood if reviewers are to be encouraged to participate in the process and to do so in the the most ethical and effective manner. (shrink)

Does organizational governance contribute to academic quality? Two top research universities are observed in-depth: Berkeley and the MIT. Three key factors are listed that help generate consistent and lasting high performance. Priority is allocated to self-evaluation and to the development of talent. Values and norms such as community membership, commitment to the affectio societatis, mutual respect and trust strongly regulate the behaviors of the faculty. Complex inner organizational processes are at work making integration and differentiation compatible. Each of these factors (...) contributes to produce top academic quality in a synergetic way. (shrink)

The object of this paper is two-fold: first, to show that contrary to what seem to have become a widely accepted view among historians of biology, the famous 1953 first Nature paper of Watson and Crick on the structure of DNA was widely cited — as compared to the average paper of the time — on a continuous basis from the very year of its publication and over the period 1953–1970 and that the citations came from a wide array of (...) scientific journals. A systematic analysis of the bibliometric data thus shows that Watson's and Crick's paper did in fact have immediate and long term impact if we define "impact" in terms of comparative citations with other papers of the time. In this precise sense it did not fall into "relative oblivion" in the scientific community. The second aim of this paper is to show, using the case of the reception of the Watson—Crick and Jacob—Monod papers as concrete examples, how large scale bibliometric data can be used in a sophisticated manner to provide information about the dynamic of the scientific field as a whole instead of limiting the analysis to a few major actors and generalizing the result to the whole community without further ado. (shrink)

In the classic study Little science, big science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1963), Derek Price traces the historical shift from what he calls little science?exemplified by early?modern ?invisible colleges? of scientific amateurs and enthusiasts engaged in small?scale, informal interactions and personal correspondence?to 20th?century big science, dominated by professional scientists and wealthy institutions, where scientific information (primarily in print form and its analogues) was mass?produced, marketed and circulated on a global scale. This article considers whether the growing use of more (...) participatory, interactive ?Web 2.0? technologies and social media in science today (e.g. wikis, blogs, tagging and bookmarking, conferencing, etc.) may signal a revival of little science modes of communication that contrast with big science conventions that continue to dominate research policy, scientific institutions, and the publishing industry. A brief historical review of responses to the scientific ?information explosion? since the early 1900s is presented, with a particular focus on the idealization of large?scale, automated information systems and the privileging of formal (document?producing) over informal (interpersonal) modes of scientific communication. Alternative frameworks for scientific communication that incorporate both documents and interaction are used to examine contemporary examples of so?called Science 2.0 and citizen science projects to determine whether such projects indicate the emergence of new modes of communication in science that bridge the immediacy and involvement of invisible colleges and the rigor of peer?reviewed publishing. The implications for traditional documentary forms such as the journal article are also discussed. (shrink)

Normal science involves persistent collective application of an agreed research agenda. Anomaly can threaten normal science, but so too can “undue persistence” in that agenda by a normal science peer group. We consider how “undue persistence” might be a collective effect of the common incentive structure that individual members of the peer group typically face in relation to their careers. To understand how “undue persistence” might be ameliorated, we consider the affordances of a peer’s membership of a departmental collegium, organized (...) on a different basis than the specialist peer group and hence able to supply the individual scholar with kinds of information and critical comment that may occasion off-agenda contributions to the specialty. The idea of brokerage is borrowed from the sociology of innovation to see how a scholar’s departmental colleagues might be able to broker new ways of thinking that can assist in the avoidance of “undue persistence”. (shrink)

This article improves our understanding of the reasons underlying the intellectual migration of scientists from existing cognitive domains to nascent scientific fields. To that purpose we present, first, a number of findings from the sociology of science that give different insights about scientific migration. We then attempt to bring some of these insights together under the conceptual roof of an actor-based approach linking expected utility and diffusion theory. Intellectual migration is seen as the choice of scientists who decide under uncertainty (...) and on the base of estimations about probabilities, costs, and benefits of the migration. The resulting choice model can be used as a heuristic base for further exploration of the subject. (shrink)

(1995). Positivist discourse and social scientific communities: Towards an epistemological sociology of science. Social Epistemology: Vol. 9, Knowledge (EX) Change, pp. 233-255.

Several, seemingly unrelated problems of empirical research in the 'sociology of scientific knowledge' can be analyzed as following from initial assumptions with respect to the status of the knowledge content of science. These problems involve: (1) the relation between the level of the scientific field and the group level; (2) the boundaries and the status of 'contexts', and (3) the emergence of so-called 'asymmetry' in discourse analysis. It is suggested that these problems can be clarified by allowing for cognitive factors (...) as independent ('heterogeneous') variables, in addition to and in interaction with (i.e., not only as attributes of) social factors. In the 'sociology of translation', 'heterogeneity' among scientists, cognitions and textual elements has been made a basic assumption. This heterogeneity is bound together in an 'actor network'. However, since the 'actor network' is an empirical category, the methodological problems remain unresolved. This has consequences for the relation between empirical data and theoretical inferences. (shrink)

: This paper seeks to contribute to the development of a sociological understanding of scientific change. It first presents a conceptual framework for defining and understanding the conditions that give rise to episodes of cumulative change (both as the selective reconstruction of events and as the patterned structuring of innovations over time and across different settings). It argues that one of the most powerful structuring mechanisms is the existence of standardized research technologies. Then, the development of electroencephalography (EEG) is presented (...) as an illustrative case study. The EEG supported a dramatic episode of development in brain science, and did so primarily through technological standardization and reliability. The case shows how standard and manipulable technologies provide a framework for orderly change both in retrospective accounts and in specific historical periods of scientific practice. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of networks in cognition on two levels: on the level of the organization of ideas, and on the level of interpersonal communication. Any interesting system of ideas forms a network: ideas presented in a linear order (the order forced upon us by verbal expression) will necessarily convey a distorted picture of the underlying patterns of thought. Networks of ideas typically consist of a great number of nodes with just a few links, and a small number (...) of hubs with very many links; that is, they are, to employ Albert-László Barabási's term, "scale-free." Barabási fits into a specific tradition: Hungarians had an early influence on the philosophy of networks, and on the philosophy of communication as developed at Marshall McLuhan's Toronto Circle. In fact, this was the circle in which certain Hungarian and Austrian ideas on mediated collective thinking first came together—a telling testimony to the conditions of disturbed communication and idiosyncratic networking typical of East-Central Europe, past and present. The nodes-and-hubs pattern is characteristic, too, of social networks, in particular of scholarly and scientific networks. The paper analyses the role of "invisible colleges"—informal groups of scientific elites through whom the communication of information both within a field and across fields is channelled. By way of conclusion the notion of a new type of personality, the "network individual," is discussed: the network individual is the person reintegrated, after centuries of relative isolation induced by the printing press, into the collective thinking of society—the individual whose mind is manifestly mediated, once again, by the minds of those forming his/her smaller or larger community. (shrink)

ArgumentKuhnian phases of paradigmatic development correspond to characteristic variations of citation measures. These correlations can in turn be predicted from a simple model of human information processing when applied to the common environments of scientists. By combining a scientometric and a human information processing approach to the history of scientific thought, structures of disciplinary development, and in particular paradigmatic cycles, can be more reliably assessed than before. Consequently, the quantitative historian of science is liberated to some extent from the vagaries (...) of qualitative judgment, as exemplified by traditional narrative type approaches to the history of science. (shrink)

Objectives. To document the prevalence of ethical requirements in the instructions for authors of journals that published randomized clinical trials (RCTs) in 2005. Design. Using a validated computerized search strategy for retrieving abstracts of RCTs, we retrieved 13 184 references from 2056 journals. These journals were divided into journals that had published > 30 RCTs in 2005, and those that had published fewer. We included all the former and a random sample of the latter journals in the analysis. Measurements. Coders (...) retrieved the instructions for authors for each journal. The coders identified whether 15 ethical requirements were present in each of the instructions, calculated the age of the journal, and determined where it was published. Results. Only 51% of journals required that authors document review by an ethics committee, only 55% required declaration of conflicts of interest, and only 33% required documentation of informed consent. Overall, 48% of instructions required three or fewer of 15 ethics items. Journals publishing many RCTs each year had more ethical requirements (P <0.001), older journals had more requirements (P <0.012), as did journals published in the US (P <0.001). Journals published in Europe had fewer (P <0.001). However, in multiple regression analyses involving the journal's age, location of publication, and number of RCTs published, only publishing many RCTs was associated with having more ethical requirements (P <0.001). Conclusions. Many journals do not require important elements of research ethics in their instructions for authors. Ethical requirements are less common in the many journals that publish few clinical trials each year, journals that have often been overlooked in prior studies of journal ethics. Keywords: Randomized clinical trials, ethical instructions, publication ethics, journal requirements. (shrink)

The author presents an historical account of scientific work conducted at a commercial biotech firm in San Diego called Hybritech. It tells of disruptions in research programs following the acquisition of the company by the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly in 1986. The story centers on responses to an organizational challenge that research managers and scientists in any setting, academic or industrial, must confront—how to create and sustain an organizational culture that is conducive to creativity and innovation. The case provides an (...) occasion for evaluating the strengths and weaknesses of two leading theoretical accounts of innovation in social studies of science and technology—sociological network analysis and actor-network theory. (shrink)

In this paper I examine how knowledge claims operating through two types of governance techniques can guide product innovations in the agri-food sector. The notion that knowledge claims have strong social and material components informs the analysis undertaken, developed through a discussion of social science approaches to the role of human groups and biophysical properties in social change. I apply this socio-technical perspective to two case studies: defining dietary fiber and reducing saturated fat. The first involves attempts to produce an (...) international definition of dietary fiber standards in the Codex Alimentarius Commission. The second involves efforts by food manufacturers to reduce the saturated fat content of food products in line with UK government guidelines. The case studies draw upon observations, document analysis, and over forty interviews. I suggest that although knowledge claims are active constituents of both governance processes, important differences are evident and arise from the history of scientific and technical controversies, and from the scope for articulating broader questions. In particular, the different criteria for judging “success” guide how knowledge claims are implicated in the governance of product innovation. I suggest that further work is required to understand the wider implications of efforts to change the composition of foods, not only for public heath, but also in relation to food security, quality, safety, and availability in a rapidly changing context. In order to do this successfully, knowledge claims made about the material properties of food should be made objects of social science analysis. (shrink)

Big Data research is currently split on whether and to what extent Twitter can be characterized as an informational or social network. We contribute to this line of inquiry through an investigation of digital humanities scholars’ uses and gratifications of Twitter. We conducted a thematic analysis of 25 semi-structured interview transcripts to learn about these scholars’ professional use of Twitter. Our findings show that Twitter is considered a critical tool for informal communication within DH invisible colleges, functioning at varying levels (...) as both an information network and a social network. We find that Twitter follow relationships reflect common academic interests and are closely tied to scholars’ pre-existing social ties and conference or event co-attendance. The concept of the invisible college continues to be relevant but requires revisiting. The invisible college formed on Twitter is messy, consisting of overlapping social contexts, scholars with different habits of engagement, and both formal and informal ties. Our research illustrates the value of using multiple methods to explore the complex questions arising from Big Data studies and points toward future research that could implement Big Data techniques on a small scale, focusing on sub-topics or emerging fields, to expose the nature of scholars’ invisible colleges made visible on Twitter. (shrink)

George Psathas was one of the most important “central figures” or “intellectual promoters” in a “phenomenological sociology” movement not only in the United States bur also in the world. This essay, using the term “phenomenological sociology” in a broader sense, i.e., as a sociological perspective, aims to demonstrate this by tracing his research and publication activities, educational activities, and activities for making up intellectual networks and scientific organizations in reference to various materials including a detailed curriculum vitae compiled by him (...) in 2008 and an interview with him in 2009. (shrink)

The diffusion of ideas about contemporary terrorism is analyzed using a sociology of science methodology. One of the most common means of creating understandings of a phenomenon is the development and diffusion of ideas that influence the positions adopted by a wide range of actors, including government bureaucrats and decision makers, legislative and corporate bodies, and the public. How did terrorism researchers interact with these actors to construct, maintain, and modify the development and perception of contemporary terrorism? How were the (...) ideas diffused and what impact did they have on policymakers? Did the invisible college of terrorism researchers function as an epistemic community? These questions are analyzed using an integrated research strategy that employs a number of techniques and data sources such as bibliometrics, content analysis, and citation analysis of selected terrorism research publications, biographies, and conferences, and on-line tracing of researchers’ affiliations, participations, and collaborations. (shrink)

Reviewer evaluations and recommendations for 853 manuscript submissions, over a span of 4 years, are analyzed for evidence of particularistic bias, reviewer agreement, and predictive validity for forecasting a published manuscript's citation impact. Attributes of the submitters, their affiliated institutions, and the reviewers have little consistent association with reviewers' recommendations or editorial decision outcomes. Furthermore, reviewers' recommendations demonstrate a reasonable degree of agreement. However, neither reviewers' evaluative ratings across five dimensions nor publication recommendations can predict the number of citations that (...) a published article subsequently receives. Strengths and limitations of various features of the manuscript review process, as well as the importance of monitoring the process for particularistic biases and evidence of predictive validity, are discussed. (shrink)

After almost 30 years of publications, Journal of Business Ethics (JBE) has achieved the position of main marketplace for business ethics discussion and knowledge generation. Given the large amount of knowledge produced, an assessment of the state of the art could benefit both the constructive development of the discipline and the further growth of the journal itself. As the evolution of a discipline is set to be reflected in the evolution of its leading journal, we attempt to characterize changes in (...) the intellectual structure of business ethics through a bibliometric analysis of articles published in JBE . Specifically, we conduct a knowledge-stock analysis to assess the evolution, major trends, and current state of the journal. Additionally, we use citation and co-citation analysis to provide an accurate description of the content and the advancement of research in business ethics. Through the results of our analysis, we are able to: (1) pinpoint the characteristics of the growing stock of knowledge published by JBE over the years; (2) identify the most influential works on business ethics research; and (3) detect the formation and evolution of schools of thought in business ethics. (shrink)

This thesis deals with the colonisation of the university by market forces. The object of inquiry is coproduction of academic knowledge between academic and non-academic actors in newly established universities and university colleges in Sweden. The development of knowledge as a main competitive advantage for commercial companies, and the shift in policies accompanying this development, provides an explanation for the introduction of market mechanisms into the governance of university research. The main contribution of the thesis, however, is the analyses of (...) three coproducing research centres – in service research, engineering and collaborative media – on the basis of epistemology, interpreted as different knowledge cultures. In most policy accounts knowledge is treated as homogeneous, which is problematic as it conceals differences in academic disciplines’ relations to the object or phenomenon of inquiry. Such differences have bearing on publication patterns, prospects of generating academic credibility and possibilities to engage external partners in coproduction relationships. Importantly, this has an impact on the prospects of attracting various sources of funding that are of significance for newly established universities and university colleges with fewer fixed resources than the old universities. It is argued that not only are we witnessing a colonisation of the entire university by market forces, but also a colonisation of social science and humanities by science - scientific perspectives and work ways and the technical knowledge interest. (shrink)

The reaction to conventional agriculture and food systems has generated a host of alternative social movements in the past several decades. Many progressive agrifood researchers have researched these movements, exploring their strengths, weaknesses, and failures. Most such research is abstracted from the movements themselves. This paper proposes a new way of self-organization that, while fulfilling traditional university demands on researchers, will provide research support for progressive agrifood movements by transcending the boundaries of disciplines and individual universities.