The Ethos of Science and Central Planning

Abstract

This chapter presents Robert K. Merton’s and Michael Polanyi’s accounts of academic freedom and reconstructs their criticism of centralized and totalitarian control of science. It will discuss in historical context how their conceptions of values, norms, and traditions in science (i.e., “the ethos of science”) produced their defense of academic freedom and free society. The main thesis is that Merton’s and Polanyi’s defenses of freedom of science and a free society against totalitarianism have much in common, even though Polanyi himself was critical of Merton’s sociology. Both thinkers argue that freedom of science and a free society depend on each other, and both share the idea that the ethos of science exemplifies the values of a free society as a whole. In general, neither defends academic freedom and liberty in individualistic terms. The chapter reconstructs Polanyi’s specific arguments against the central planning of science, namely his argument based on the nature of scientific authority, his argument that tacit knowledge in science is indispensable, as well as his argument that scientific inquiry is a spontaneous order whose development would be paralyzed by a central and hierarchic organization. This chapter also highlights a few shortcomings of both Merton’s and Polanyi’s views and suggests some modifications thereof. Nevertheless, it concludes by arguing that their warnings offer valuable lessons for the present day, as the motives underlying the attempts by governments to control science are still with us in the context of populist and authoritarian politics.