The Mediating Role of the Scientific Elite

Abstract

At its inception, the sociology of science wag centrally concerned with relations between the scientific community and scientific knowledge on the one hand, and the wider society on the other hand. This was true, for instance of Merton's early work on the emergence of modern science' and on the norms governing scientific research.2 It was also true of Barber's attempt to provide a first systematic overview of the field.3 Recently, however, there has been a growing concentration upon the intemal characteristics of the research community, and particularly on the academic research community, with the wider social setting taken as given and relatively unproblematic.4 Those responsible for these more narrowly focused studies have not been unaware that the research community is subject to external influences. But they have assumed that, at least in some modem societies, it has sufficient autonomy to make a separate analysis of its internal processes acceptable as a first approximation. This research strategy has proved to be fruitful. It has enabled researchers to isolate a series of manageable problems and has produced results which have significantly improved our understanding of scientific communication,5 the reward system of science,6 social control in science,7 the development of research areas,8 and so on. However, this approach has had the unfortunate consequence of drawing attention away from the possibility of extending the analysis of the research community in such a way that connections with the

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