Mertonian Norms Research Articles

Facets of Trust in Science: Researchers can be perceived as ethical and competent despite inconsistent research results

The public perception of science and scientists themselves has become a much-debated topic in recent years. In this article, we contribute to a more nuanced understanding of the public’s trust in science by focussing on the practices of science, which are often not known by the public. Building on previous research by Ebersole, Axt and Nosek (2016), we conducted a preregistered, quota-sampled survey in Austria (N = 564), where we presented participants with different scenarios about scientific practices. Thereby, we disentangled the perception of scientists–i.e., how competent and ethical they are being perceived–from the confidence in their scientific findings–i.e., how correct their results are being perceived. For instance, when “a researcher X conducted a study with an interesting finding, which he then publishes”, this researcher was–in our study– perceived as averagely competent and ethical, and the findings were perceived as neither correct nor incorrect (but somewhere in between). However, if “another researcher Y tried to replicate X’s finding, but failed - and X then criticized Y’s methodology and dismissed the new study”, researcher X was perceived as less competent, less ethical and the original results were perceived as less correct by participants. Importantly, if researcher X “acknowledges Y’s methodology” or “investigates the difference between the original study and the failed replication”, ratings for X’s competence and ethical behavior were higher than for how correct his results were being perceived. Moreover, the highest competence and ethics ratings were obtained, when researcher X was described to share the methods and data online for transparency. Psychological dispositions of the participants, such as political orientation or motivation for cognition, did not seem to affect these ratings to a large degree. These results are discussed in the light of Mertonian norms of science, which highlight cooperativeness and disinterestedness.

Peer-review procedures as practice, decision, and governance—the road to theories of peer review

Abstract Peer review is an ubiquitous feature of science with three interrelated roles: first, as a mechanism to assess quality through expert judgement (process); second, to decide on the distribution of scarce resources, e.g. publication space (outcome); and, third, to self-govern science (context). This is poorly reflected in public and academic debates, where attention is focused on alleged deficits. Moving beyond a ‘deficit model’, we, first, divide the peer-review process into eight different practices, which, in combination, can make up a wide variety of peer-review procedures. Second, we claim that peer review not only provides evaluative decisions, but, more importantly, also provides the legitimacy for these decisions. Thus, an encompassing theoretical view of peer review should integrate process, outcome, and context. Such a view could start by theorizing peer review as a form of government, not unlike democracy, grown historically around concerns for legibility, responsibility, and responsiveness akin to the Mertonian norms.

The economic logic of open science in fusion energy research: A policy perspective

This policy perspective explains the economic logic of open science in fusion energy research (FER) via application of the Mertonian norms of communalism, universalism, disinterestedness, originality, and skepticism. FER is transitioning between science and technology and so provides a fitting example of the productive balance between the community of scientists, who generally favor full disclosure of their results, and that of technologists, who typically favor secrecy or exclusive possession, as the New Economics of Science (NES) explains. For scientists, the publicly funded International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project is an example of the benefits of open science because all its intellectual property is equally shared by its members. For technologists, the next Demonstration (DEMO) phase, is being characterized by an influx of private funding and by a shift from open science to proprietary technologies, which can negatively impact future research due to exclusive possession. The evidence provides support to continuing with a systematic approach to international environmental technology policy that favors managed co-opetition via open science because this can provide greater economic and social utility to both communities of scientists and of technologists.

THE BOUNDARIES OF SCIENCE

This paper delves into the intrinsic boundaries and limitations of the scientific method and its applications from an ontological, epistemic and moral perspective. It poses essential questions surrounding underlying presuppositions, basal unobservability and impracticality in science while aiming to be cognizant of the intricacies and subtleties that one encounters while asking questions that are elementary in nature. It seeks to give insight about the use of epistemic tools in science following which the applications of the scientific method are examined in purely human and moral domains. The latter part of the paper examines systemic issues that may inhibit the preservation of the Mertonian norms, intellectual honesty andhumility and scientific progress. The goal of the paper is to marry both philosophical and technical concerns surrounding the scientific method and to promote a newly emancipated science that is free from all intellectual dishonesty and needless conviction while maintaining a keen awareness of its own intrinsic limitations and presuppositions.

The DECAY of Merton’s scientific norms and the new academic ethos

ABSTRACT This article provides a conceptual reformulation of Merton’s scientific ethos widely known by the acronym CUDOS (i.e. communism, universalism, disinterestedness and organised scepticism). While Merton perceived the threat to the autonomy of science as coming from outside the walls of academe, mainly in the form of nationalism and racism, the subsequent rise of neoliberalism and global market forces means that the scientific ethos is being undermined largely from within the university itself, leading to the DECAY (i.e. differentialism, egoism, capitalism and advocacy) of CUDOS. The STEM-ification of the humanities and social sciences academic community has led to the rise of a post-academic ethos. This manifests itself in professional pragmatism with academics facing both ways at the same time by remaining largely committed to Mertonian norms in theory but needing to adapt to the performative demands of DECAY as a new set of institutional norms that prevails in practice.

Post-publication Peer Review with an Intention to Uncover Data/Result Irregularities and Potential Research Misconduct in Scientific Research: Vigilantism or Volunteerism?

Irregularities in data/results of scientific research might be spotted pre-publication by co-workers and reviewers, or post-publication by readers typically with vested interest. The latter might consist of fellow researchers in the same subject area who would naturally pay closer attention to a published paper. However, it is increasingly apparent that there are readers who interrogate papers in detail with a primary intention to identify potential problems with the work. Here, we consider post-publication peer review (PPPR) by individuals, or groups of individuals, who perform PPPRs with a perceptible intention to actively identify irregularities in published data/results and to expose potential research fraud or misconduct, or intentional misconduct exposing (IME)-PPPR. On one hand, such activities, when done anonymously or pseudonymously with no formal discourse, have been deemed as lacking in accountability, or perceived to incur some degree of maleficence, and have been labelled as vigilantism. On the other, these voluntary works have unravelled many instances of research misconduct and have helped to correct the literature. We explore the tangible benefits of IME-PPPR in detecting errors in published papers and from the perspectives of moral permissibility, research ethics, and the sociological perspective of science. We posit that the benefits of IME-PPPR activities that uncover clear evidence of misconduct, even when performed anonymously or pseudonymously, outweigh their perceived deficiencies. These activities contribute to a vigilant research culture that manifests the self-correcting nature of science, and are in line with the Mertonian norms of scientific ethos.

Brief communication: Climate science as a social process – history, climatic determinism, Mertonian norms and post-normality

Abstract. For ages, the topic of climate – in the sense of “usual weather” – has in the western tradition attracted attention as a possible explanatory factor for differences in societies and in human behavior. Climate, and its purported impact on society, is an integrated element in western thinking and perception. In this essay, the history of ideas about the climatic impact on humans and society and the emergence of the ideology of climatic determinism are sketched from the viewpoint of a natural scientist. This ideology favored the perception of westerners being superior to the people in the rest of the world, giving legitimacy to colonialism. In modern times, when natural sciences instituted self-critical processes (repeatability, falsification) and norms (such as the Mertonian norms named CUDOS), the traditional host for climate issues, namely, geography, lost its grip, and physics took over. This “scientification” of climate science led to a more systematic, critical and rigorous approach of building and testing hypotheses and concepts. This gain in methodical rigor, however, went along with the loss of understanding that climate is hardly a key explanatory factor for societal differences and developments. Consequently, large segments of the field tacitly and unknowingly began reviving the abandoned concept of climatic determinism. Climate science finds itself in a “post-normal” condition, which leads to a frequent dominance of political utility over methodical rigor.

Relating Democratic and Scientific Ethos in Academic Self-Governance

Robert K. Merton envisions science as embedded in a social order and explicitly links the ethos of science and the ethos of democracy. This contribution argues that the Mertonian norms are best seen as a set of procedural norms. Thus, the normative integration of science and society is to be conceived by means of the procedures that form the "in-between" of academia and democratically governed societies. We elaborate how peer review can be understood as a central mechanism of self-govern­ment in science. We analyze to what extent the governance of science through peer review aligns with the Mertonian democratic ethos. We investigate to what extent lotteries as a procedural element may hold the potential for new linkages between science and (democratic) social order. In conclusion, we summarize the benefits of conceiving of Merton’s norms as procedural norms with regard to the ethos as well as the autonomy of science considering the integration of scientific and social order.

A Fractured Profession: Commercialism and Conflict in Academic Science by David R. Johnson

Reviewed by: A Fractured Profession: Commercialism and Conflict in Academic Science by David R. Johnson Vassa Grichko David R. Johnson. A Fractured Profession: Commercialism and Conflict in Academic Science. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017. 192 pp. Hardcover. $49.95. ISBN: 978-1-421-42353-1 Does commercialism impede upon academia? The book's author, David R. Johnson, Assistant Professor of Higher Education Leadership at the University of Nevada at Reno, noted, "We know remarkably little about commercial culture in the academic profession" (p. 6), and studied the prevalence of commercialism and its effects on highly esteemed American universities, from academic scientists' viewpoints. Specifically, he queried: "How does a commercially oriented reward system operate in the academic profession?" (p. 2). Methodologically, the author conducted a qualitative study in 2010, interviewing traditionalists, or "scientists [who] advance knowledge by sharing their discoveries with the scientific community. . . in exchange for recognition of priority in discovery," and commercialists, or "scientists [mandated] to contribute to economic development through the dissemination of their discoveries in the market in exchange for profits" (p. 2). To be classified as a [End Page E-20] commercialist, a scholar had to be an inventor on at least 5 patents, must have founded a company, or had to have a licensing agreement with a company. Sixty-one academic scientists, traditionalists and commercialists, participated in the study; slightly over half comprised the latter group. Fifty-two of the scientists (~85%) were males, and 9 were females (only 2 of these female scientists were commercialists). The interviewees specialized in chemistry (41%), biology (31%), or chemical/ biological engineering (28%). Remarkably, the sample featured a plethora of prominent scholars, including 3 Nobel laureates, 16 members of the National Academy of Sciences, and 18 fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Four elite American universities (2 private and 2 public), located in different regions, were represented. These institutions were members of the Association of American Universities (AAU) between 1960–2005, and, combined, accounted for nearly 20% of all licensing activity among AAU universities from 2000–2007. Consequently, the author acknowledged that the findings generalize only to the commercial culture of elite universities, which are research exemplars, and are paragons of technology transfer to others. The work is divided into 4 chapters along with an introduction and conclusion. The sections are entitled: "Professional Ideologies in Higher Education" (Introduction), "Normative Tension in Commercial Contexts" (Chapter 1), "The Reconstruction of Meaning and Status in Science" (Chapter 2), "Embracing and Avoiding Commercial Trajectories" (Chapter 3), "Identity Work in the Commercialized Academy" (Chapter 4), and "Commercialism, Rationalization, and Fragmentation in Science" (Conclusion). The denouement is followed by an appendix (interview protocol). Twenty-four questions, with a few corresponding probes, constituted the interview protocol. It was fractionated into 4 thematic areas, titled "The Conception of the Scientific Role," "Motivations of Entrepreneurialism," "Norms of Science," and "The Operation of Reward Systems." The introduction recounts the rapid rise of research commercialization in American higher education since the 1980s. The author refers to the passing of the Bayh–Dole Act, or the Patent and Trademark Law Amendments Act of 1980, which permits a university, or non-profit institution, to pursue ownership of an invention that was created using federal funds. Thereby, the author thoughtfully selected interviewees to balance those who received PhDs pre-and post-1980. The opening recounts tales of research commercialization blockbusters. However, the author contends that the remarkability of these innovative feats is not their fiscal successes, but "the dramatic change they represent in the nature of work in aca demic science and the social organization of higher education" (p. 1). Thereby, this book delves into 2 divergent reward systems, which the author notes as breeding intraprofessional conflict. The first is priority recognition to traditionalists; the second is the exchange for profits for commercialists. Since this book predominantly focuses on cultural differences between commercialists and traditionalists, specifically with respect to "norm espousal, meaning and status, career paths, and identity" (p. 19), the first chapter examines how traditionalists and commercialists adhere to and deviate from Mertonian norms of science. Overall, the author found that "traditionalists espouse the institutionalized norms of disinterestedness, universalism, and communalism, whereas commercialists attitudinally or behaviorally...

Negotiations and Research Bargains

The present study provides an autoethnographic account of the efforts to gain field access to a police organization, spanning more than 2 years. The aim is to describe a case of gaining access in relation to the professional norms of science put forward by Robert K. Merton. Aided by an organized record of notes, e-mails, and other written communications regarding access (144 memos of various types), the study describes and discusses the negotiations with Mertonian norms that followed from the dissonance between ideals of research and practical reality. Opening up for further scholarly discussion, this article concludes that Merton’s norms are incongruent with both prevailing guidelines of research ethics and with the practical, short-term problems of access negotiations and research bargains.

The Ethos of Science and Its Correlates: An Empirical Analysis of Scientists’ Endorsement of Mertonian Norms

Mertonian norms of science have long been subject to various criticisms, one of which concerns a ‘story book image’ of science that those norms portray for science to justify the independence of science from social control. Despite much criticism of Merton’s work on the normative structure of science, little research has been undertaken on the degree to which practicing scientists indeed hold onto such norms. This study presents an empirical analysis of Mertonian norms using the survey of 633 Korean scientists. The Korean scientific community offers a strategic research site. With predominantly US-educated researchers, it contains a sizeable membership of academic scientists who have become sensitised to ethical and normative problems due to Dr Hwang’s notorious research fraud scandal. Our empirical analysis analyses scientists’ endorsement of Mertonian norms based on a framework incorporating demographic factors and the socialisation into science. Among the four Mertonian norms, we find communalism to be strongly influenced by professional conditions such as size of research funding, professional network and involvement of non-academic affairs. This finding confirms the growing concerns with the norm of communal ownership of scientific output in the face of increasing academic commercialisation.

Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise by Nicolas Rasmussen (review)

Reviewed by: Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise by Nicolas Rasmussen Bruno J. Strasser Nicolas Rasmussen. Gene Jockeys: Life Science and the Rise of Biotech Enterprise. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. viii + 249 pp. Ill. $35.00 (978-1-4214-1340-2). There has been surprisingly little research on the deep historical transformation of the relationships among science, medicine, and society—usually called the “biotech revolution.” Anecdotal stories of academic molecular biologists turned multimillionaires abound, but a scholarly account of these “gene jockeys” in the context of the Cold War, the academic culture of the 1970s, and the changing economy of the time has been missing. This is what historian of science and medicine Nicholas Rasmussen has provided. For anyone interested in the biotech revolution and what it meant for academia, business, and medicine, Gene Jockeys is the place to start. Rasmussen follows closely the race to isolate (“clone”) five human genes, produce the proteins they specified (insulin, human growth hormone, interferon, erythropoietin, plasminogen activator), run clinical trials, gain FDA approval, market the new drugs, and fight off litigation from competitors. The research took place in the 1970s and 1980s, in academic laboratories and in biotech companies newly founded by academic scientists. In a winner-take-all atmosphere, research was intensely competitive in both settings. Scientists stormed each other’s freezers to steal valuable material, wrote patent applications on Christmas Eve, and sued each other to slow down rival research. The story reads like a frantic detective novel, although a sad one for those who imagined that scientific research was ruled by Mertonian norms and a communitarian ethos. Using rich historical sources from incessant litigation over patents, Rasmussen articulates a new understanding of the norms and values of biotech research and how they differed (or not) from the world of academic research and makes a number of important and original arguments. What difference did it make to the ambitious postdocs who left academia for these new biotech companies that their salaries were now paid by hopeful venture capitalists rather than by taxpayers? This line of interrogation echoes the “Forman-Kevles debate” about whether the physicists who funded their academic research through military contracts during the Cold War were able to retain their intellectual autonomy. Rasmussen is very clear about his answer regarding the early days of biotech: it was the scientists who set the research agendas, not their marketing colleagues. And unlike physicists, molecular biologists did not need to pretend they were interested only in pure science while developing gadgets for the military. In setting the stage for his narrative, Rasmussen argues that molecular biology was a Cold War science, not because of its marginal contribution to biological warfare, but because it was “an icon of a fundamental science showcasing the free thought that only the Free World supposedly offered.” (p. 27). Leftist critics of science, as well as researchers attached to traditional academic values, argued that those who crossed the imaginary line between academia and business could be motivated by money only. Not so, argues Rasmussen; their motivation was primarily scientific. Biotech companies offered excellent conditions to carry out [End Page 185] cutting edge research, often better than in academia. Furthermore, the prospects of making money were so remote that the scientists could only be in for the intellectual rewards. True, some of the founders might have thought about getting rich, but they were simultaneously after the Nasdaq and the Nobel—and they often got both. For the first decade of biotech, from the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s, these two strategies seemed perfectly compatible, although at a significant price to the taxpayer and the consumer. The biotech drugs were important for some patients, but most of the biotech companies’ revenues came from off-label prescriptions of often dubious medical value. Also, the competition between many companies and the hurdles set by broad patent protection (for hardly original methods) led to duplication of research, in academia and industry. Thus, Rasmussen argues, as a new mode of therapeutic innovation, the biotech revolution was not revolutionary at all, in that it did not bring a novel and efficient solution to the problem of bringing basic...

Rebels or profiteers? Biohackers The Politics of Open Science Alessandro Delfanti Pluto Press, 2013. 168 pp.

Rebels or profiteers? <b>Biohackers</b> The Politics of Open Science <i>Alessandro Delfanti</i> Pluto Press, 2013. 168 pp.

Rigor vs. Insight: Teaching Political Science to Science &amp; Engineering Students

In this paper I identify major challenges in teaching core concepts and methodologies of political science to students majoring in science and engineering (S&E) based on five years of teaching in a technological university. With strong belief in Mertonian norms of science inculcated in classes and labs of their own major departments, S&E students typically exhibit a common misunderstanding of “science” in political science as rhetorical addition to what is essentially a subjective view of unruly and messy politics. Such a misperception leads to their difficulty in recognizing that political phenomena can also be studied in ways as scientifically rigorous as natural phenomena are. It further obstructs them from appreciating qualitative research methods as valid tools of research enriching our understanding of not only social but natural phenomena. Lastly, S&E students are generally less tolerant to ambivalence and uncertainty in discussion processes and outcomes. This paper also presents the current state of the political science curricula in major Asian science & technology universities. These universities generally lack a full-scale department in humanities or social sciences making it hard to mobilize the content knowledge or methods of sister disciplines. This paper hopes to start a discussion and research about those challenges as well as unique opportunities for political science education to contribute to the core curricula of technological universities.

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for ‘Can a Knowledge Sanctuary also be an Economic Engine? The Marketing of Higher Education as Institutional Boundary Work’

Teaching &amp; Learning Guide for ‘Can a Knowledge Sanctuary also be an Economic Engine? The Marketing of Higher Education as Institutional Boundary Work’

Ethical Conflicts in Commercialization of University Research in the Post–Bayh–Dole Era

Protection of intellectual property as well as its exploitation for monetary benefit have existed for centuries. However, commercialization of intellectual property had not entered the precincts of academic universities in a significant way until the introduction of the Bayh–Dole Act in the 1980s in the United States. The post–Bayh–Dole era has seen a quantitative increase in patenting activity in universities. This article summarizes the ethical conflicts ushered in by increasing commercialization of academic university research. Activities related to the protection and commercial exploitation of intellectual property have led to changes in academic culture that have given room for debate between the puritans and the modernists. Issues contended by the two groups have been identified, and both sides of the argument are discussed. The key to achieving “responsible commercialization of research” is to balance the Bayh–Dole ethos with the traditional Mertonian norms of academic research.

The Deanship and Its Faculty Interpreters: Do Mertonian Norms of Science Translate into Norms for Administration?

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Additional informationNotes on contributorsNathaniel J. BrayNathaniel J. Bray is an Assistant Professor in the Higher Education Program at The University of Alabama.

Extending the Mertonian Norms: Scientists' Subscription to Norms of Research

Extending the Mertonian Norms: Scientists' Subscription to Norms of Research

To What Extent is Academic Entrepreneurship Taken for Granted Within Research Universities?

We test the hypothesis that academic entrepreneurship, resisted in the past by some as being in conflict with the long-standing Mertonian norms of open science and free enquiry, has now become widely accepted within the academy, or ‘taken for granted’, as an institutional shift. Using responses to a series of attitudinal questions about academic entrepreneurship and commercialization of the university from a National Survey of Technology Transfer Office directors and faculty in the United States, we explain the variation in attitudes among faculty by academic discipline, by type of university and by previous experience as an entrepreneur. We compare the attitudes of faculty to the attitudes of technology transfer office directors to gauge the width of the gap between these two groups of stakeholders. The empirical results provide strong evidence that the commercialization of the university is by no means yet ‘taken for granted’.

The Deanship and Its Faculty Interpreters: Do Mertonian Norms of Science Translate into Norms for Administration?

This study presents research comparing faculty-held norms for academic deans' behavior to Mertonian norms of science. Findings indicate that while some elements of Mertonian norms hold true, it is not the best pattern of grouping faculty expectations for deans. Implications for research and practice are discussed.