Particularism in Science

Abstract

issue of particularism in science had its origin in a short paper published by Robert K. Merton in the first volume of an obscure jour nal, the Journal of Legal and Political Sociology. Through successive publications, Merton changed the name of this paper from A Note on Science and Democracy to the more portentous The Normative Structure of Science. In this paper Merton identified four institu tional imperatives that comprise the ethos of modern science—uni versalism, communism, disinterestedness, and organized scepticism. Universalism enjoins scientists to subject truth-claims to the imper sonal criteria of consonance with observation and previously con firmed knowledge. Regardless of their source, the acceptance or rejection of claims entering the lists of science is not to depend on the personal or social attributes of their protagonists; his race, nationality, religion, class and personal qualities are as such irrelevant. Objectiv ity precludes particularism.1 Through the years, Merton's four institutional imperatives or, more frequently, their caricatured surrogates have been exposed to exten sive criticism from both conservatives and radicals alike.2 According to the conservative opponents of trendy studies in the sociology of science, all that matters to a proper understanding of science is the inferential structure of such things as testing and explaining. Why sci entists actually do expose their views to serious testing is irrelevant. All the conceptual machinery that has grown up in science to assure such things as accurate observation and adequate testing is essential to science's being science, while the equally complex system of cita tions and the awarding of credit is not. On occasion, scientists might let extraneous considerations such as race, gender, and religion influ ence their decisions on scientific issues, but such intrusions are rela tively rare and when they do occur, the scientist is not behaving sci entifically. more universalistic science is the more likely it is to realize its manifest goal of explaining the world in which we live. Universalism facilitates the acquisition of objective knowledge, while particularism frustrates it. Merton's more radical critics argue that Merton has not gone far enough in seeing the influence of social forces on science. To the con trary, particularism in science is rampant. When we study scientists

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