Chris Armbuster quotes Robert Merton, the respected
sociologist
of science (and incidentally the inventor of the focus
group) in
his most recent post.
Merton famously proposed a number of norms for scientific
discourse:
*Universalism: new work is assessed by universal impersonal
criteria
*Communality: scientific knowledge should be common
property
*Disinterestedness: prime concern is the advancement of
knowledge
*Organized scepticism: knowledge should be continually
subjected
to critical scrutiny
These fairly accurately reflect the belief sets common in
grand
old establishment scientists of Merton's day and possibly
today.
Unfortunately they do not reflect actual scholarly
behaviour,
then or now.
The data for this are very numerous and correspond to the
"I-thou" problem in the dichotomies of
author-reader behaviour:
for example, "I as a reader want to see your raw data
and lab
books" yet the same person as an author is most
unwilling to do
this until the potential for publications and credit has
been
exhausted (thereby breaking two of the Norms already).
Researchers may say they believe in Merton's Norms but don't
act
like it. An exercise I set for my graduate students is to
read
James Watson's The Double Helix and try to find examples of
any
of Merton's Norms being exemplified by Watson, Crick or
their
colleagues and collaborators.
We are only as good as the last set of data, and
unfortunately
Merton's otherwise excellent writings do not always stand up
to
this test.
Best
Michael A Mabe (with my scientometrics hat on)
Chief Executive Officer
International Association of STM Publishers
E-mail: mabe stm-assoc.org
Web: www.stm-assoc.org
-----Original Message-----
[mailto:owner-liblicense-llists.yale.edu] On Behalf
Of Armbruster,
Chris
Sent: 18 May 2007 23:57
To: liblicense-llists.yale.edu
Subject: RE: Scholarly Publishing Groups Issue White Paper
on
For Michael Mabe and this list I have the following
quotation
from Robert K. Merton, which goes way back to 1942 and his
thoughts on the norms of science and the compatibility of
science
and democracy:
"The substantive findings of science are a product of
social
collaboration and are assigned to the community. They
constitute
a common heritage in which the equity of the individual
producer
is severely limited. An eponymous law or theory does not
enter
into the exclusive possession of the discoverer and heirs,
nor do
the mores bestow upon them special rights of use and
disposition.
Property rights in science are whittled down to the bare
minimum
by the rationale of the scientific ethic. Scientists claim
to
'their' intellectual property are limited to those of
recognition
and esteem which, if the institution functions with a
modicum of
efficiency, are roughly commensurate with the significance
of the
increments brought to the common fund of knowledge."
I have argued that publishers need to understand that in
future
they will need to make their profits from nonexclusive
licensing
in a competitive market. Then commercial publishing and open
science will be in sync again.
Rephrased as a warning: Publishers that insist on transfer
of
copyright are out of sync with the norms and economics of
science.
Chris Armbruster
"Cyberscience and the Knowledge-Based Economy, Open
Access and Trade
Publishing: from Contradiction to Compatibility With
Nonexclusive
Copyright Licensing".
Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstr
act=938119
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