When I use a word . . . Academic norms, a scientific ethic, and the scientific conscience

Academic norms

In order to understand the sources and nature of academic violations, one first has to understand the nature of academic norms.

Starting in the 1930s the American sociologist Robert K Merton (1910–2003) described what he considered to be the norms of academic scientific practice, notably in a series of three essays,123 subsequently collected under the general heading “The Normative Structure of Science.4

Puritanism

In the first of these three essays, “Motive forces of the new science,”1 later named “The Puritan spur to science,”4 Merton discussed the role of 17th century Puritanism in the development of experimental science. He linked the Protestant work ethic and the Puritan desire to further social welfare with, as Robert Boyle put it in his last will and testament, “Attempts to discover the true Nature of the Works of God … to the Glory of the Great Author of Nature, and to the Comfort of Mankind.” To this Merton added a quote from the American philosopher Edwin Arthur Burtt: “Experimental science was to Boyle, as to Bacon, itself a religious task.”5 Francis Bacon, we should remember, a pioneer experimenter, was active in the late 16th and early 17th centuries and was an Anglican. Merton also pointed out that several Puritans had become influential members of the Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge (now the Royal Society) when it was founded in 1660.

Merton’s thesis has been widely disputed and debated.6 In particular, it has been pointed out, notwithstanding the Puritan membership of the Royal Society, that there is no good evidence that it was their Puritanism that drove them towards the experimental paradigm, that there were Puritans who did not espouse experimental scientific research, and that there were others, not Puritans, who did. To be fair to Merton, he never claimed that Puritanism was the only force that drove the development of scientific experimentation in the 17th century, merely that it was one of several factors. Nor did he ignore the fact that scientific discoveries might threaten religious beliefs, and that that might in turn lead to a backlash against science.

Whatever the truth of the matter, Merton’s thesis was that what he regarded as normative science in the middle of the 20th century was influenced to some extent, although not solely, by religious beliefs that had been prevalent in the 17th, primarily rationality and empiricism, which may well have been the case.

The social order

In the second essay, “Science and the social order,” Merton explored the role of social mores on scientific developments, dealing in particular with the ways in which scientific activities and progress may engender hostility. He dealt in particular with the effects of Nazi ideology on German science in the 1920s and 1930s, when only science performed by those deemed to be of unimpeachably pure “Aryan” origin would be acceptable, and even then only if they were also Nazi sympathizers, leading to a form of racial anti-intellectualism and the denial of any type of science that did not emanate from such individuals.

Scientists who migrated to the UK, the USA, and elsewhere, as a result of Nazi and Italian fascism in the 1930s, included Hugh Blaschko, Niels Bohr, Max Born, Edith Bülbring, Ernst Chain, Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, Otto Frisch, Fritz Haber, Hans Krebs, Rudolf Peierls, Max Perutz, and Erwin Schrödinger. Several of the émigrés were subsequently involved in the Manhattan Project.7

Merton pointed out that whereas science, properly practised, demands evaluation of hypotheses in terms of their logical consistency and empirical evidence, an academic norm can be judged based on such irrelevances as racial theories and political creeds.

Merton might therefore have also cited the case of Lysenkoism, the ideology of the Soviet biologist Trofim Lysenko, supported by Stalin, who conducted a political campaign against Mendelian genetics, propounding, as a kind of Marxist–Leninist doctrine, that Lamarckism, the inheritance of acquired characteristics, dictated the development of species, rather than evolution. Scientists who disagreed with this were dismissed from their posts; some were imprisoned and even executed.

Merton then discussed the functions of some of the norms of pure science. His first conclusion was that “science must not become the handmaiden of theology or economy or state.” In short, science must be autonomous.

Linked to that was scientific integrity, the appreciation of which would enhance public acceptance of ideas that were difficult to understand, to the benefit of society, particularly when new findings led to tangible technological improvements that the public could appreciate without having to understand the underlying science.

This in turn made it important for scientists to take heed of the possible consequences of their research, that they should not turn out to be harmful or perverse (i.e. opposite to that expected), rather than beneficial. This linked to an earlier paper of Merton’s on unanticipated consequences of purposive social action,8 although “unintended” would have been a better term than “unanticipated,” since consequences, even though unintended, may nevertheless be anticipated. Merton identified three causes of unintended consequences: lack of knowledge, error, and “imperious immediacy of interest,” i.e. concentrating too much on immediate rather than later outcomes. The possible consequences were also of three kinds: unexpected benefit, unexpected harm, or reversal of the intended outcome.

Merton then observed that the difficulties that science poses led to what he called a “cult of unintelligibility” on the part of the scientists. He suggested that this was unavoidable, but did not call out, as he might have done, the tendency of specialists in a field to give ordinary words extraordinary meanings,9 obfuscating the nature of their opinions or findings. Physicists, for example, talk about the “colour” and “flavour” of quarks, with their subatomic “beauty,” “charm,” “truth,” and “strangeness.” But then they are trying to find words to describe the indescribable. Philosophers and social scientists in particular seem to revel in their choice of vocabulary in this way, making their publications hard to read and understand. Every discipline, of course, has its argot, colloquialisms, jargon, patois, patter, slang, and, oh yes, technical terms,10 but the use of comprehensible explanations, to the extent that the science will allow, should be the norm.

Finally, in this essay, Merton discussed what he called “organized skepticism,” not the beneficial form of skepticism that I have previously discussed,11 but a potentially malign form, in which the skepticism tends towards iconoclasm, challenging the assumptions of other institutions, which can lead to antagonism and even rejection of the science on which it is based. In this case restrained skepticism should be the norm.

The normative structure of science

In the third essay Merton discussed normative scientific behaviour that he thought would be useful in obviating possible anti-intellectualism.3 The essay was originally titled “Science and technology in a democratic order” and later “The normative structure of science.”

Merton defined three interrelated aspects of science, which I paraphrase here:

1. The methods by which evidence is obtained.

2. The accumulated knowledge so obtained.

3. The cultural values and mores that govern scientific activities.

Being a sociologist Merton restricted himself to a discussion of item three, but there is no reason why we cannot extend his analysis to the first two, at least briefly.

The methods by which evidence is obtained Normative scientific methods are well described, although perhaps not always easy to achieve. They include the conduct of bench based experiments, using appropriate tissues and reagents in appropriate concentrations, at appropriate temperatures, for appropriate lengths of time. They include studies of appropriate populations with appropriate controls, as exemplified in the various possible structures of observational studies and clinical trials, taking care to reduce the likelihood of biases (https://catalogofbias.org/). And they include appropriate methods for analysing the data that accrue and of displaying them numerically in tables, graphically in figures, and photographically.

The accumulated knowledge so obtained Equally, there are well described appropriate methods for interpreting the accumulated knowledge so obtained, including the various types of systematic reviews and meta-analyses and methods of conducting them satisfactorily and presenting the results unambiguously.

The cultural values and mores that govern scientific activities Here Merton outlined four major norms: universalism, communality (which he called communism), disinterestedness, and organised skepticism.

Universalism This referred to what Merton called the impersonal character of science, i.e. science uncontaminated by ethnocentric, nationalistic, or social prejudices or biases. Of course, scientific findings are not completely universal, since there are genetic differences across different ethnic communities, but those were not within Merton’s purview, and need not be within ours when reflecting on the basic universality of scientific discoveries.

Communality This, Merton asserted, refers to the common ownership of goods, in this case “the substantive findings of science.” He allowed that scientists had some right to intellectual property, in the sense of the recognition and esteem that accompany their discoveries, and that that even extended to eponymous recognition, which he described as “a mnemonic and a commemorative device.” However, he excluded the right to regard a scientific discovery as anyone’s private property, thus outlawing patents, while recognising that there were difficulties associated with that position and that taking out a patent may ensure that scientific findings can be protected and thereby made more readily available for public use.

Disinterestedness Writing in the 1940s Merton believed that fraud in science was virtually absent, a belief that we might today think naive, knowing as we do of counterexamples. It is true, however, that it appears to be much more common today than ever before. He attributed the supposed absence of fraud to rigorous policing by the scientific community of its own behaviour and peer accountability. Although he recognised the possibility for self-aggrandizement through “cultism, informal cliques, [and] prolific but trivial publications,” he dismissed concerns, by asserting that “in general, spurious claims appear to be negligible and ineffective.” Today we demand declarations of interests to determine how disinterested scientists are. Merton also believed that the relationship between scientists and the public, being less intimate than the relationships between the public and their physicians and lawyers, was less likely to lead to fraud, chicanery, and quackery. He did not in the essay expatiate on the obvious implications of that view for the supposed conduct of physicians and lawyers.

Skepticism Finally, Merton again counselled that scientific skepticism be limited to the scientific sphere and not extended outside it, for example to the “dogmas of church, economy, or state.”

Surprisingly, Merton did not cite curiosity as a scientific norm. He did praise utility, but curiosity need not lead to findings that have immediate obvious practical applications. I would add it to the list.12 Nor did he comment on the need to restrain excess enthusiasm for a hypothesis.

A scientific ethic and the scientific conscience

Merton used the term “the ethos of science” to sum up the accumulated factors that he considered to form normative science. I prefer to refer to a scientific ethic. An ethic is “a system or set of moral principles,”13 while an ethos is “the moral or practical code by which a person lives.”14 There does not on the surface appear to be much difference between the two, but I prefer the former because I value the concept of a system of principles above that of a code.

Whichever term one uses, Merton’s characterisation of what he meant is appropriate; I paraphrase it here: “A complex of values and norms held to be binding on a scientist. The norms are expressed in the form of prescriptions, proscriptions, preferences, and permissions. They are legitimized in terms of institutional values. They fashion the scientist’s scientific conscience.”