The Scientific Enterprise

The theories and facts we cling to today are only an experiment away from revision. As you read these words, chemical research is occurring in thousands of labs across the globe. The modern scientific enterprise is vastly different from that of the quintessential scientist working in isolation in a small laboratory. Modem research is characterized by research teams led by scientists who spe- 

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The concept of an invisible college , mentioned by Ziman, is the creation of Derek de Sofia Price, an influential historian of science and herald of scientomet-rics (Yagi et al. 1996), who wrote at length about such colleges and their role in the scientific enterprise (Price 1963, 1986). Price was one of the first to apply quantitative... 

The scientific enterprise is concerned with the identification, interpretation, and quantification of observed responses in terms of mechanical, physical, and chemical materials properties. The technological enterprise is concerned with the utilization of materials responses or distinctive shock processes. 

Dobbs, Betty Jo Teeter. "Gravity and alchemy." In The scientific enterprise, ed. Edna Ullman- Margalit, 205-222. Dordrecht , 1992. 

Dear, Peter, ed.The scientific enterprise in early modem Europe readings from Isis. Chicago Univ of Chicago P, 1997. 337p. 

This idealized process is often misinterpreted as applying to scientists individually rather than to the scientific enterprise as a whole. Science is a social activity, and one scientist s theory or proposal cannot become accepted unless it has been published, peer reviewed, criticized, and finally accepted by the scientific community. 

Examples of other work on research schools M. Eckert, "Sommerfeld s School and the Electron Theory of Metals," HSPS 17 (1987) 191234 Gerald Geison, Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology The Scientific Enterprise in Late Victorian Society (Princeton Princeton University Press, 1978) L. J. Klosterman, "A Research School of Chemistry in the Nineteenth Century Jean Baptiste Dumas and His Research Students," Annals of Science 43 (1985) 180 H. A. M. Snelders, "J. H. van t Hoffs Research School in Amsterdam (18771895)," Janus 71 (1984) 130 F. L. Holmes, "The Formation of the Munich School of Metabolism," in William Coleman and F. L. Holmes, eds., The Investigative Enterprise Studies on Nineteenth-Century Physiology and Medicine (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London University of California Press, 1988). 

Another element of identity is constructed by the practice of ritual and tacit knowledge. Historians and sociologists of science who have emphasized the roots of science in craft practices have long noted the tradition of apprenticeship at the heart of the scientific enterprise. This apprenticeship is practiced in the laboratory, where the construction and use of instruments must be learned ... 

Geison, Gerald L. Michael Foster and the Cambridge School of Physiology The Scientific Enterprise in Late... 

The terms data, information, and knowledge are often used interchangeably for diverse purposes by researchers in all scientific disciplines. In the scientific enterprise, however, they are not interchangeable, despite arguments to the contrary. As a matter of fact, Chemometrics, the subject of this Symposium, may spring at least in part from the real... 

To justify the selection of overwhelming odds against the null hypothesis many will also argue that a lax standard for errors of the first kind would promote inefficiency in research and would therefore be detrimental to the scientific enterprise as a whole. This argument is behind the often-heard assertion that scientists need to be certain about the positive results they accept because they are used to construct new hypotheses and theories and will be incorporated into the body of assumed scientific knowledge. (37.38)... 

Such practices might or might not be sanctioned by custom. Their chief effect, however, is that they give the appearance of a law of nature to the p<0.05 and other such conventions. And what is more, they give the scientific enterprise a cloak of objectivity which is unecessary, unbecoming and, what is most important, potentially damaging to the societal role of science. 

According to Rossiter (1982), young white male scientists were seen as the salvation of the scientific enterprise in the 1920s and 1930s. She asserts that white women, African Americans, and Jewish scientists seeking industrial jobs were the victims of highly discriminatory employment practices. Rossiter contends that even when the advertisement did not include the phrase male Christians only it was common knowledge that only they need apply. 

We can also be proud of the entire scientific endeavor. The scientific enterprise in this country, indeed the world at large, represents some of the best attributes of human civilization. Nobel Laureate Robert Wilson spoke around 1969 about basic research in the Fermi lab This new knowledge has all to do with honor and country, but it has nothing to do directly with defending our country except to make it worth defending. ... 

There are four basic rules of scientific method to which an investigator is committed (1) good observation, (2) the public nature of observation, (3) the necessity to theorize logically, and (4) the testing of theory by observable consequences. These constitute the scientific enterprise. I consider below the wider application of each rule to d-ASCs and indicate how unnecessary physicaliStic restrictions may be dropped. I also show that all these commitments or rules can be accommodated in the development of state-specific sciences. 

P. Dear, ed., The Scientific Enterprise in Early Modern Europe Readings from Isis, University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1997. 

There were critics who thought that chemistry could never be more than a combination of laboratory practice, which they viewed as a kind of cookery, and classification, which they saw as the essence of natural history, including botany and zoology. Those same critics regarded natural history as unscientific, lacking the rigor of mathematical physics or astronomy. Chemistry was indeed far from Newtonian physics. We have already seen the failure of attempts to assimilate chemistry to Newton s program. But to dismiss chemistry for this reason was to adopt too narrow a definition of science and to undervalue the role of classification in the scientific enterprise as a whole. Natural historians have to classify what they observe or collect so do chemists. 

Employment opportunities for Ph.D. scientists have only recently become healthy again, so until now women who wanted to go into academia had a very tight job market in which to try to make their way into that workforce. Today, all the people hired in the 1960s, during the boom years for expanding the scientific enterprise in this country, are nearing retirement or emeriti status. For the first time, there is room in the academic pool. 

In many d-ASCs, defenses against unacceptable personal impulses become partially or wholly ineffective, so that the person feels flooded with traumatic material he cannot handle. All these things result in fear and avoidance of d-ASCs, and make it difficult or impossible for some individuals to function in a d-ASC in a way that is consistent without he development of state-specific science. Maslow 36 discusses these as pathologies of cognition that seriously interfere without the scientific enterprise in general, as well ordinary life. In principle, adequate selection and training can minimize these hazards for at least some people. 

Discussions of representation in the scientific literature devote too little attention to their communicative functions. Yet "representation" never takes place in a vacuum, and the issue of representation for what end is always relevant, even if masked. The context shapes the character and usage of the representations, as well as highlighting the social character of the scientific enterprise. An important exception to this general neglect is the intensive study of chemical language, particularly its symbolic components, by Mestrallet (1980 see also Hoffmann Laszlo, 1991 Laszlo, 1993 Weininger, 1998). 

Computational chemistry can play a key role in advancing the scientific enterprise. It can provide the data input for many larger, more complex models and provide us with unique insights into molecular behavior so that we can design and construct new molecules for specific tasks. Computational chemistry has become an established tool in the chemist s toolbox and is being used in broad areas of chemistry to replace experimental measurements and to provide us with improved understanding of molecular behavior. Computation will be the major tool that will enable us to cross the many temporal and spatial scales that characterize environmental science. 

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