Notes on Merton's “The Normative Structure of Science”

Robert Merton is writing after WWII at a time where the institution of science is under attack and scientists have become self-conscious about their being integrated with society. Being a functionalist in sociology, Merton is using the same functionalist method of analysis to describe the relation between science and society. He takes the institutional goal and function of science to be the extension of certified knowledge, the relevant definition of which he takes to be “empirically confirmed and logically consistent statements of regularities.” Hence, Merton is mainly concerned with the cultural structure of science as an institution, i.e., not with the method of science but its mores and norms.

According to Merton, the ethos of science, or that complex of values and norms which binds scientists, is comprised of four sets of institutional imperatives: universalism, communism, disinterestedness, organized skepticism. One question that comes up is whether Merton thinks that these imperatives are ideals and norms that scientists actually act on, or rather ideals and norms that they are supposed to act on, in a prescriptive sense. On one hand he says these norms fashion the scientist’s conscience or his super-ego, which seems like a descriptive claim, but on the other hand, he says he is trying to answer the question which social structure provides an institutional context for the fullest measure of development of science, which sounds prescriptive.

The distinction he draws between motivational and institutional norms and ideals also strikes me as interesting. He argues, for instance, that even though scientists may not individually be disinterested and unbiased, there is something distinctive about the institution of science that makes scientists behave that way in an institutional level. In other words, it is because the institution enjoins disinterested activity that it is to the interest of scientists to conform to this norm and internalize it.

Merton also talks about the relationship between scientists and the public. He seems to see a benefit in scientists’ being in a way detached from the lay person. He says because the scientist does not stand vis-à-vis a lay person in the same fashion as do the physician and lawyer, the possibility of exploiting the credulity and ignorance of the laymen is reduced. I can see how there is a benefit in this sort of detachment between the scientist and the lay person, which is a benefit for science. However, I believe this gap can actually escalate the problem of false authority of any claim that is deemed ‘scientific’ in the eyes of public, which is certainly a disadvantage for society.

Merton, Robert K. “The Normative Structure of Science.” In The Sociology of Science: Theoretical and Empirical Investigations, 267-278. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1973.