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Presents brief summaries of major intellectual movements in contemporary sociology of science: (1) the Mertonian paradigm; (2) the Kuhnian revolution; (3) Marxist and conflict sociologies of science; and (4) the "laboratory life" studies. A second part focuses on the question about the relationship between science and the sociology of science. (CS)

This paper explores the concept of "practice" as used by sociologists and philosophers in their studies of "scientific practice." It begins with a dialogue between the author, a sociologist of scientific practice, and John Paul Van Bendegem, a philosopher of scientific practice. The dialogue was initiated by the author in an effort to understand what philosophers of scientific practice do and how what they do differs (if at all) from what sociologists of scientific practice do. This is followed by a YIN discussion of the issues in the framework of the author as a defender of disciplinary boundaries and represents at its extreme a form of disciplinary imperialism. The YANG discussion is based on the need to address disciplinary decadence and to decolonize the disciplines. It takes into account the late twentieth century inter-, multi-, and transdisciplinary movements across the fields of inquiry. At the end of these discussions, the question of the meaning of social construction in studies of scientific practice poses a challenge to philosophers of scientific practice: in a world in which humans have evolved as already, always, and everywhere social what is the alternative to "the world" as socially constructed? In order to understand what this question means, I provide the technical meaning of "social construction" as the fundamental theorem of sociology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of science has undergone considerable growth and diversification in recent years. Early sociology of science was developed within philosophical debates regarding the nature of science and the social bases of knowledge in general. Karl Mannheim and Max Scheler in the 1920s gave these discussions a specifically sociological bent. In the 1930s, the theme was made into an explicit sociology of science both by Marxists and by the functionalist Robert Merton, and both approaches were followed up during the next 30 years. The takeoff of the sociology of science into a flourishing research area occurred in the early 1960s, with the publication of works by Derek Price and by Thomas Kuhn, as well as important studies by Joseph BenDavid and by Warren Hagstrom. In the 1970s, sociology of science burgeoned into a variety of approaches: citation and network studies, conflict theory, social constructivism, ethnomethologically-influenced studies of laboratory life, and others. The idealized functionalist image of science has largely given way to more critical, relativist, and highly empirical approaches to science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the myth of Kuhnian revolution. One of the curious features of the sociologist Thomas S. Kuhn's sociology of science is that it does not treat sociological factors as problematic. Kuhn notes, for example, that normal science is educationally narrow, rigid, and ill-designed to foster creativity. This characterization is not incompatible with scientific progress because rigidity accrues to individuals in Kuhn's theory, But he ignores the fact that rigidity accrues to organizations and institutions too. Bureaucratization, professionalization, and social controls imposed by political authorities all contribute to rigidity in collectivities. This sort of sociological myopia is further reflected in Kuhn's assumption that the supply of innovators, young scientists and those who have entered new areas of research, according to Kuhn, is independent of social conditions within and outside of science. The Kuhnian mythology probably stems from the tact that Kuhn discusses scientific change in terms of a political model, uses the term revolution to describe a certain type of innovative period in science, and underscores the persuasive aspects of scientific discourse. But Kuhn's model is based on the modern political revolution, a form of social change generally characterized by the circulation of elites.

The article challenges the views that justify modem science as a progressive, well-functioning social system and the paradigmatic mode of inquiry. The old sociologists of science focus on the social system of science itself and exempt scientific knowledge from sociological scrutiny. New sociologists of science are more concerned with social context, social construction, and on-site studies of scientific practice. They have also made scientific knowledge an object of Inquiry. These are significant, even revolutionary, departures from the Mertonian tradition in the sociology of science and from traditional philosophy and history of science. But new sociologists of science, with some notable exceptions are busy developing new accounts of how science works. They are not challenging or criticizing modern science as a value system, a woridview, and a way of living and working. The sociological imagination should not be viewed as a pathway to utopia. Rather, it should be seen as a guide to social change-and not only to social change on the grand scale, but also to marginal improvements in the conditions under which people live and inquire.