Current Comments®

Science Historian I.B. Cohen Reviews
Social Studies of Science by
Sociologist Bernard Barber

EUGENE GARFIELD

INSTITUTE FOR SCIENTIFIC INFORMATION®
3501 MARKET ST., PHILADELPHIA, PA 19104

 

 

Number 9

March 2, 1992

 

I can’t recall exactly when I first met
Bernard Barber. I do remember though that
it was more than 25 years ago through a
mutual colleague, sociologist Robert K.
Merton. Over the years, our paths have
crossed quite regularly, especially at the
monthly meetings of the Science Policy
Association of the New York Academy of
Sciences. °

Barber is a professor emeritus in the De-
partment of Sociology at Columbia Uni-
versity. He earned his undergraduate,
master’s, and PhD degrees at Harvard, and

has lectured throughout the world. In 1952,.

Barber published the pioneering book, Sci-
encé and the Social Order.' In 1988, he
wrote a commentary for Current Contents®
(CC®) on this Citation Classic®, which by
now has been cited in about 200 papers
and countless books.” Table 1 below lists

. Barber’s books——the most recent being So-
cial Studies of Science. This work docu-
ments many of the important phases in the
development of the sociology of science—
with emphasis on the emergence of scien-
tific specialties. Table 2 shows the table of
contents.

Through a fortunate coincidence, I met
the eminent Harvard science historian
I. Bernard Cohen at the home of Robert
Merton. I used the occasion to ask Cohen
to review Barber’s book. The review ap-
pears below.

Seminal Contributors
to the Sociology of Science"

In addition to explaining Merton’s semi-
nal influence on the study of the sociology

 

  

JL

of science, Barber lists the contributions of
many other scientists whose works have
been discussed in CC over the years.
Among them are J.D. Bernal,* Thomas S.
Kuhn,° and Derek J. de Solla Price. In-
deed, the Institute for Scientific Informa-
tion® (ISI®) has sponsored the J.D. Bernal
Award’ of the Society for Social Studies
of Science (4S) for more than 10 years.
Bernal’s book, The Social Function of Sci-
ence,® is a classic in the field.

Barber’s new book also refers to ISI in
the introduction. He asserts that many so-
cial scientists have been “enriched” by the
Science Citation Index® (SCI®) and the So-
cial Sciences Citation Index® (SSCI®). He
is accurate in stating that the SC/ was in-
vented “as an aid to information retrieval
for working scientists. Young sociologists
of science...pioneered in using citation data

Bernard Barber

 

 

CURRENT CONTENTS® ©1992 by ISI@
Table 1: Books published and edited by Bernard Barber.

Barber B. Science and the social order. New York: Free Press, 1952. 288 p. (Also published by Allen &
Unwin,-London, 1953; Collier, New York, 1962, Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1978. Japanese
translation published by Ryokuen Shobo, Tokyo, Japan, 1955. Spanish translation published by Ediciones

Ariel, Barcelona, Spain, 1957.)

oor ee- . Social stratification: a comparative analysis of structure and process. New York: Harcourt,
Brace & World, 1957. 540 p. (Spanish translation published by Fondo de Cultura Economica, Mexico

City, Mexico, 1964.)

Barber B & Hirsch W, eds. The sociology of science. New York: Free Press, 1962. 662 p. (Also published

by Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1978.)

Barber B & Barber E G, eds. European social class: stability and change. New York: Macmillan, 1965.
* 145 p. (Also published by Greenwood Press, Westport, CT, 1978.)

Barber B. Drugs and society. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1967. 212 p.

Henderson L J. L. J. Henderson on the social system. (Barber B, ed.) Chicago, IL: University of Chicago

Press, 1970. 261 p.

~ Barber B & Inkeles A, eds. Stability and social change. Boston, MA: Little, Brown, 1971. 451 p.
Barber B, Lally J J, Makarusha J L & Sullivan D. Research on human subjects: problems of social
control in medical experimentation. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1973. 263 p. (Also published

by Transaction, New Brunswick, NJ, 1979.)

Barber B, ed. Medical ethics and social change. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social
Science. Philadelphia: American Academy of Political and Social Science, 1978. Vol. 437. 420 p.
----------. Informed consent in medical therapy and research. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University

Press, 1979. 214 p.

-------- =, “Mass apathy” and voluntary social participation in the United States. New York:

Arno Press, 1980. 276 p.

ne . The logic and limits of trust. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1983. 189 p.
cone Effective social science: eight cases in economics, political science, and sociology. _

New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1987. 205 p.

o---------, Social studies of science. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990. 278 p.

 

as a useful, if not perfect, measure of the
‘comparative scientific achievement and
“prestige of individuals, departments, and
universities.” (p. 12)

However, he is not entirely correct in
saying I “did not foresee this use of the
Science Citation Index when [I] invented
it.” (p. 12) Barber was not aware that in
my first paper on the. SCZ? I did in fact
refer to the potential use of citation data
for evaluation. But I certainly did not imag-
ine at that time the eventual extent of its
use. Barber goes on to ‘say “Garfield and
the very successful organization he
founded, the Institute for Scientific Infor-
mation in Philadelphia, have been most en-
couraging of this unexpected benefit of their
work. Thus, through the use of survey re-
search, the Science Citation Index, and so-
phisticated statistical analysis, research
methodology has played an important part
in the development of the sociology of sci-
ence as.a specialty.” (p. 12) In an upcom-
ing essay, I will discuss the many types of
citation indicators and analyses available

 

directly through ISI’s research contract de-
partment.

Robert Merton, Founding Father
of the Sociology of Science

Barber singles out Robert Merton as hav-
ing made a monumental mark as a scholar
in establishing and developing the sociol-
ogy of science. In fact, Merton was.Barber’s
tutor in sociology at Harvard in the late
1930s. Barber discusses Merton’s landmark
study of Science, Technology and Society
in Seventeenth-Century England'® in terms
of extending Max Weber’s argument about
the: influence of the Protestant work ethic
on capitalism to the emergence of modern
science and technology. Barber calls
Merton’s book a “prototype” in what be-
came the sociology of science.

Merton is ‘no stranger to CC readers. He
and Harriet Zuckerman coauthored a Cita-
tion Classic commentary!! in 1986 on their
paper dealing with the beginnings of the
referee system in science, and reporting

 

4

CURRENT CONTENTS® ©1992 by ISI®
Table 2: The table of contents to Social Studies of Science by Bernard Barber.

Introduction Multiple, Diverse, and Unexpected Origins: Toward an
Analytical Sociology of the Sociology of Science 1

PARTI Historical Origins and Development of the Sociology

of Science _ 21
Introduction 23
1. The Emergence and Maturation of the Sociology of Science. 25

2. Talcott Parsons and the Sociology of Science: An Essay in
Appreciation and Remembrance 33

3. Sorokin’s Formulations in the Sociology of Science

(with Robert K. Merton) 45
PART II The Social Process of Scientific Discovery 77
Introduction 79

4, The Case of the Floppy-Eared Rabbits: An Instance of
Serendipity Gained and Serendipity Lost

(with Renée C. Fox) 83
5. Resistance by Scientists to Scientific Discovery 97
6. The Functions and Dysfunctions of ‘‘Fashion”’ in Science:
- A Case for the Study of Social Change 115
7. Trust in Science 133
PART III The Dilemma of Science and Therapy 151
Introduction : 153
8. Medical Technology and Its Ethical Consequences , 157
9. Perspectives on Medical Ethics and Social Change 169
10. The Ethics of Experimentation with Human Subjects 177
11. Ethical Aspects of Clinical Research in the
Field of Human Reproduction 191
12. Research on Research on Human Subjects: Problems of Access
to a Powerful Profession 203
13. Liberalism Stops at the Laboratory Door 215
14. Control and Responsibility in the Powerful Professions 221
PART IV_ Relations between the Sociology of Science and
Related Scholarly Fields 241
Introduction 243
15. On the Relations between Philosophy of Science and
Sociology of Science 245
16. Scientists and the Social Study of Science: A Research Problem 253
17. Tension and Accommodations between Science and Humanism _ 259
Index 273

 

CURRENT CONTENTS® ©1992 by ISI®@
their systematic analysis of refereeing
in The Physical Review.'? Six years be-
fore, Merton had also commented? on his
classic book Social Theory and Social
Structure.'4

Kuhn’s and Price’s Contributions

Two other scientists are described by
Barber as major contributors to the disci-
pline of the sociology of science—Thomas
Kuhn and Derek Price, neither of them
strictly sociologists. Kuhn’s impact in the
field stems from his enormously influen-
tial book, The Structure of Scientific
Revolutions,'> termed a “masterpiece” by
Barber. The book remains today a “funda-
mental focus for the sociology of scientific
discovery,”? (p. 13) and required reading
for many students pursuing a science
degree.

Derek de Solla Price was a dear friend
and colleague of mine. I’ve often discussed
his seminal work in the field of
scientometrics in CC.® Indeed, Merton and
I wrote the foreword to the second edition
of Little Science, Big Science...and Be-
yond.'®!7 At the time of its second printing
in 1986, the first edition had been cited in
725 publications. Even more striking is that
these references were spread among 80 dif-
ferent disciplines and specialties.

Trained in England as a physicist, Price
later became professor of the history of
science at Yale. His main contribution came
in the use of mathematics and statistics to
quantify the social study of science. Barber
points out that Price was “determined to

 

make the social and historical study of sci-

ence scientific” through the use of quanti-
tative data. (p. 14)? He is inextricably linked
with the field of scientometrics.

About the Reviewer, I.B. Cohen

1.B. Cohen is Victor S. Thomas Profes-
sor Emeritus of the History of Science at
Harvard. An authority of world fame on
Isaac Newton and Benjamin Franklin, his
Franklin and Newton,'® published in 1956,
was named the best book on early Ameri-
can history for that year by the Institute of
Early American History and Culture. Most
recently he has published Puritanism and
the Rise of Modern Science: The Merton
Thesis.'9 Later this year, Princeton Univer-
sity Press will publish his The Natural and
the Social Sciences: A Critical and His-
torical Perspective.

Cohen arrived at Harvard in 1933 and has
never left, except for periods of research.
He received his BS in mathematics in 1937
and was the first US citizen to receive a
degree in the history of science (1947).

He has been president of the History of
Science Society (1961-1962), chairman of
the US National Committee of the Interna-
tional Union of the History and Philosophy
of Science, and president of the Union
Internationale d’Histoire et de Philosophe
des Sciences (1968-1971). He is widely rec-
ognized as the doyen of the history of
science.

* eR KK

My thanks to Paul R. Ryan and Eric
Thurschwell for their help in the prepara-
tion of this introduction.

© 1992 181

 

REFERENCES

1. Barber B. Science and the social order. New York: Free Press, 1952. 288 p. /
2. ---------- - Citation Classic: commentary on Science and the social order. Current Contents/Social

& Behavioral Sciences 20(27):16, 4 July 1988.

3, ----------. Social studies of science. New Brunswick, NJ/London: Transaction Publishers, 1990.

278 p.

4, Garfield E. J.D, Bernal—the sage of Cambridge. 4S award memorializes his contribution to the social
studies of science. Current Contents (19):5-17, 10 May 1982. (Reprinted in: Essays of an information
scientist. Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1983. Vol. 5. p. 511-23.) .

§, ---------- . A different sort of great books list: the 50 twentieth-century works most-cited in the
Arts & Humanities Citation Index. Current Contents (16): 3-7, 20 April 1987. (Reprinted in: Essays of
an information scientist: peer review, refereeing, fraud, and other essays. Philadelphia:

ISI Press, 1989. Vol. 10. p. 101-5.)

 

CURRENT CONTENTS® ©1992 by ISI@
6. -------~-- - In tribute to Derek John de Solla Price: a bold iconoclastic historian of science. Current
Contents (28):3-7, 9 July 1984. (Reprinted in: Essays of an information scientist: the awards of science
and other essays. Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1985. Vol. 7. p. 213-17.)

7. -+-------- . To recognize and encourage excellence: ISI-sponsored awards. Part |. Professional
awards. Current Contents (34):3-8, 24 August 1987. (Reprinted in: Essays of an information scientist:
peer review, refereeing, fraud, and other essays. Philadelphia: ISI Press, 1989. Vol. 10. p. 236-41.)
Bernal J D. The social function of science. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1939. (Reprinted by MIT
Press, Cambridge, MA, 1967.)

. Garfield E. Citation indexes for science. Science 122:108-11, 1955.

. Merton R K. Science, technology and society in seventeenth-century England. In OSIRIS: studies on the
history and philosophy of science and on the history of learning and culture. (Sarton G, ed.) Bruges,
Belgium: St. Catherine Press, 1938. p. 362-632; reprinted with new preface, New York: Fertig, 1970, and
Harper, 1970. (See also: Cohen I B, ed. Puritanism and the rise of modern science: the Merton thesis.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. 402 p.)

11. Zuckerman H & Merton R K. Citation Classic: commentary on “Patterns of evaluation in science:
institutionalisation, structure and functions of the referee system.” Current Contents/Social & Behavioral
Sciences 18(32):20, 11 August 1986.

12, ---------- - Patterns of evaluation in science: institutionalisation, structure and functions of the
referee system, Minerva 9:66-100, 1971. .

13. Merton R K. Citation Classic: commentary on Social theory and social structure. Current Contents/
Social & Behavioral Sciences 12(21):12, 26 May 1980.

14, --+------~ . Social theory and social structure. New York: Free Press, 1949. 423 p.; revised and
enlarged edition, 1957, 645 p.; enlarged edition, 1968, 702 p.

15. Kuhn T 8. The structure of scientific revolutions, Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1962.

16. Price D J D. Little science, big science. New York: Columbia University Press, 1963. 118 p. See also his
Citation Classic commentary in Current Contents/Social & Behavorial Sciences 15(29):18, 18 July 1983.

17, --+------- . Little science, big science...and beyond. New York: Columbia University
Press, 1986. 301 p.

18. Cohen I B. Franklin and Newton: an inquiry into speculative Newtonian experimental science and
Franklin’s work in electricity as an example thereof. Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society.
Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 1956. Vol. 43. 657 p.

ge

ow

19, -------—--— . Puritanism and the rise of modern science: the Merton thesis.
New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1990. 402 p.
20. --------+- . The natural and the social sciences: a critical and historical perspective.

Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (In press.)

 

Bernard Barber. Social Studies of Science
New Brunswick, NJ/London: Transaction Publishers, 1990. 278 p.

Bernard Barber, professor emeritus of so-
ciology at Columbia University, is a pio-
neer in the disciplinary specialty of sociol-
ogy of science. His pioneering book,
Science and the Social Order (1952) was
the first general work on the sociology of
science to be written by a trained or profes-
sional sociologist. At the time when it was
written, there was little interest in this gen-
eral area as an academic specialty. There
were then no undergraduate courses given
in this subject. In a foreword to Barber’s
book, Robert K. Merton cited a recent di-
agnosis of “the present state of sociology”
by the Chicago sociologist Edward Shils,
in which the study “of science and scien-
tific institutions” was characterized as one
of “the major underdeveloped areas of so-
ciological inquiry.” Some of the chapters
of Bernard Barber’s new book on Social

 

 

 

CURRENT CONTENTS® ©1992 by ISI® , 7
Studies of Science recount the origins and
growth of this new specialty, others ex-
plore some major stages of development of
the sociology of science, while yet others
are landmark studies that document
Barber’s own role in the development of
this subject (see Table 2).

Barber agrees with other observers con-
cerning the important contribution made to
the development of this field by a group of
British scientists of the 1930s. Their num-
bers include J.D. Bernal, Lancelot Hogben,
Julian Huxley (who, unaccountably, is not
mentioned by Barber), and Frederick
Soddy—all of whom were deeply con-
cerned by the anti-rationalist movements
of those days as well as the plight of soci-
ety in the grips of the Great Depression.
To varying degrees, a number of members
of this group believed that a better model
for science as a progressive social force
might be found in the Soviet Union and
their views about science in relation to so-
cial forces were somewhat conditioned by
a celebrated paper by Boris Hessen, a mem-
ber of the Soviet delegation to the Interna-
tional Congress of the History of Science
held in London in 1931. Hessen’s goal was
to show that the “pure” abstract science of
Isaac Newton had “social roots,” which
Hessen attempted to identify by the appli-
cation of a crude Marxism.

Merton's Thesis

A seminal work of even more fat-reach-
ing influence on a nascent sociology of sci-
ence was Robert K. Merton’s Science, Tech-
nolagy and Society in Seventeenth-Century
England, published in 1938, a revision of
Merton’s doctoral thesis at Harvard. On the
fiftieth anniversary of the publication of
this work, celebrations in its honor were
held throughout the world, producing the
well deserved praise, new criticism, and
important new scholarship related to the
main themes: I myself edited a volume of
selections from the critical scholarship
spawned by this seminal work over 50
years, together with a historical introduc-
tion displaying the history of its creation
and its influence. Merton’s work was di-
rectly “concerned with the sociological fac-
tors involved in the rise of modern science

 

and technology,” but the application of his
findings toward the creation of a new schol-
arly discipline were not obvious. A pri-
mary reason for the failure of Merton’s
early work to influence a new discipline of
sociology may have been that in a larger
sense Merton’s monograph was primarily
centered on problems relating to the social
validation of an emerging science. By con-
trast, the larger view of sociology of sci-
ence, such as obtains today, is concerned
with science as an established institution—
a society, so to speak, of its own. Later in
his career, Merton returned again to the
main themes of sociology of science, stimu-
lating a whole school of younger colleagues
and providing a host of major new insights
that mark the new discipline of sociology
of science.

Kuhn and Price

Barber calls attention to the great stimu-
lus to this new field by the seminal “and
landmark” publication by Thomas S. Kuhn
on The Structure of Scientific Revolutions.
Barber was one of the first analysts to take
note that Kuhn had done more than pro-
vide new insights into the history and phi-
losophy of science; Kuhn himself had rec-
ognized that “many of my generalizations
are about the sociology or social psychol-
ogy of scientists.”

Barber takes note of another non-soci-
ologist, Derek J. Price, like Kuhn a histo-
rian of science, who made an important
contribution to a developing field of soci-
ology of science. Barber calls our atten-
tion—among other things—to Price’s rec-
ognition of the “informal networks of
communication and collaboration” that are
central in all scientific work (which he char-
acterized by using the seventeenth-century
name of “invisible college”). Another im-
portant step made by Price was his extreme
use of quantitative information, noting the
exponential growth of scientific publica-
tions, among other things, meriting the ap-
pellation by Robert Merton and Eugene
Garfield of “the father of scientometrics.”

Although quantitative studies of science
can be traced back to the nineteenth-cen-
tury endeavors of de Candolle and Galton
and others, a major new effort in such quan-

CURRENT CONTENTS® ©1992 by ISI@
titative analysis was done laboriously by
hand by Merton for his study of the seven-
teenth century. When the sociology of sci-
ence became a major subject (in the late
1950s and: the 1960s) quantitative methods
in sociology were given a greatly enlarged
scope by the introduction of survey research
(as developed. by Paul F. Lazarsfeld and
others). Later—as Barber points out—this
quantitative approach was “very much en-
tiched by the invention in the 1960s, by
Eugene Garfield, of the Science Citation
Index®.” .

Barber's. own work in the sociology of
science has illuminated “that perennial phe-
nomenon in science, the emergence and de-
velopment of new scientific specialities.”
An important set of selections in the present
volume deals with the “social process of
scientific discovery,” including a very origi-
nal and insightful study of the “resistance
by scientists to scientific discovery,” a topic
often ignored by those who imagine that
scientists welcome rather than resist every
novelty. There is also the landmark paper,
produced in collaboration with Renée C.
Fox on the “case of the floppy-eared rab-
bits,” presented as “an instance of seren-
dipity gained and serendipity lost,” which
is based on extensive oral-history interviews
with the two principal investigators, Lewis
Thomas and Aaron Kellner. Documented
case histories, as Merton once observed,
especially those which would be based on
direct observations “in the laboratories and
field stations of physical and biological sci-
entists,” perhaps might teach us more “in a
comparatively few years about the psychol-
ogy and sociology of science” than has been
learned “in all the years that have gone
before.”

For many readers, the most interesting
section of this volume deals with various
sociological aspects of the medical profes-
sion. These range from perceptive analyses
of the problems of ethics in experimenting
with human subjects to general aspects of
medical ethics in relation to medical tech-
nology and social change. A final group of
papers discusses the relation between the
philosophy of science and sociology of sci-
ence and scientists and the attitude of sci-
entists in relation to the social study of sci-

 

ence. Here Barber explores the curious phe-
nomenon, one which he has personally ex-
perienced during 40 years of research, con-
cerning general ignorance among natural
scientists concerning the social study of
science.

A Feeling of Anger

One of the most interesting: chapters in
Barber’s book is on “Scientists and the So-'
cial Study of Science.” Here Barber records
his feeling of anger at the “arrogant asser-
tion” by scientists of “all kinds of socio-
logical, political, and psychological gener-
alizations about science without any
awareness of the limitations of their im-
pressions, their prejudices, and their com-
mon sense knowledge.” Barber quotes a
statement of Freeman Dyson, that “I am
not able to make use of the wisdom of the
sociologists because I do not speak their
language.” But, in fact, he has never tried,
confessing that “for insight into human af-
fairs, I turn to stories and poems rather
than to sociology.” In analyzing why Dyson
and other scientists refuse to take account
of the findings of sociologists of science,
Barber stresses a “strong individualist cast”
to their “view of the world.” Calling atten-
tion to Dyson’s statement that “Science and
technology, like all original creations of
the human spirit, are unpredictable,” Bar-
ber remarks that this assumption is one “that
the social study of science cannot accept.”
Many readers will wish, as I did, that Bar-
ber would have expanded this sentence into
a wholly new essay, bringing to bear his
knowledge of work done in this field and
his own personal insights.

Many readers of this insightful and use-
ful volume will share the reviewer’ s regret
that no indication is given of the date of
publication of each essay. Since their dates
of composition and publication cover a span
of several decades, without such a date it is
not always easy to grasp the full relevance
of Barber’s comments.

I. Bernard Cohen, Victor 8. Thomas
Professor Emeritus of the History of Sci-
ence, Harvard University.

 

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