The Transmission of Science

This paper has benefited from the friendly advice and criticisms of earlier drafts by my colleagues Prof. M. P. Crosland and Dr C. W. Smith; by Dr G. N. Cantor of Leeds University and by Dr R. S. Porter.

For example, the titles of historical studies cited in the present paper include such terms as communication, diffusion, foreign relations, impact, influence, introduction, reception, reputation, spread, transmission, and transit.

There is a well-established tradition of sociological literature on the diffusion of innovations. An especially useful source on the tradition is Rogers E. M. , Diffusion of innovations (New York, 1962). Crane D. , Invisible colleges: Diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities (Chicago, 1972) is a valuable work which explores the social dimensions of the diffusion of knowledge in modern science.

The limitations of existing terminology for historical discussion of transmission processes is discussed later in this introduction.

Although the term ‘diffusion’ is so widely used in sociological literature and has been used by historians, the concept implies that the innovation is spreading unchanged through a relatively large community. But in science it is so common for ideas to be transformed by those who use them that very few people may have actively adopted an innovation before it is changed into a new one. The term ‘transmission’ is much more suitable than ‘diffusion’ for information transfer processes involving only a handful of people. When it is not misleading, the term ‘diffusion’ will be used as a synonym.

This distinction is discussed in Rogers E. M. , op. cit. (ref. 3), esp. ch. 4.

See for example Barber B. , “Resistance by scientists to scientific discovery”, Science, cxxxiv (1961), 596–602, reprinted in Barber B. and Hirsch R. (eds), The sociology of science (New York, 1962), 539–56.

Stahl W. H. , Roman science (Madison, Wisc., 1962).

For example, Crosland M. P. , in Historical studies in the language of chemistry (London, 1962), 53–56, discusses A. J. Hopkins's suggestion in Alchemy, child of Greek philosophy (New York, 1934) that the word ‘gold’ changed in meaning from Alexandrian times. Medieval alchemists misinterpreted their sources because they did not realize that the Alexandrians used the word ‘gold’ for ‘any gold-coloured metal, alloy or bronze’, rather than just for the metal ‘gold’ itself.

See for example Clagett M. , “The impact of Archimedes on Medieval science”, Isis, 1 (1959), 419–29; idem, Archimedes in the Middle Ages (Madison, Wisc., 1964), i: The Arabo-Latin traditions.

Sarton G. , “The scientific literature transmitted through incunabula”, Osiris, v (1938), 41–245.

Discussions of the introduction of printing in history of science include: Klebs A. C. , “Incunabula scientifica et medica”, Osiris, iv (1938), 1–359; Sarton G. , op. cit. (ref. 11); Hirsch R. , “The invention of printing and the diffusion of alchemical and chemical knowledge”, Chymia, iii (1950), 115–42. See also Stillwell M. B. , The awakening interest in science during the first century of printing, 1450–1550 (New York, 1972). Suggestive ideas on the effect of printing on ideas are contained in McLuhan M. , The Gutenberg galaxy (London, Ontario, 1962).

Debus A. G. , “The Paracelsian compromise in Elizabethan England”, Ambix, viii (1960), 71–97, p. 97.

ibid., 95.

See for example Debus A. G. , The English Paracelsians (London, 1965); Rattansi P. M. , “Paracelsus and the Puritan revolution”, Ambix, xi (1963), 24–32.

The stress on the transmission of the great positive achievements of science in the present survey arises solely from this bias in the existing historical literature.

For example, Kuhn T. S. , The Copernican revolution (Cambridge, Mass., 1957), ch. 6.

For a recent collection of studies see Dobrzycki Jerzy (ed.), The reception of Copernicus' heliocentric theory (Dordrecht, 1972); other works of this type are listed by Kuhn (op. cit. (ref. 17)) in his bibliographical notes to ch. 6.

See for example the studies in Dobrzycki , op. cit. (ref. 18).

S. Drake gives a good short assessment of Galileo's influence in Gillispie C. C. (ed.), Dictionary of scientific biography, v (New York, 1972), 247.

An illustration of such a view of Galileo is provided by Brewster D. Sir , The martyrs of science, or the lives of Galileo, Tycho Brahe, and Kepler (London, 1841).

For Descartes's influence, see for example, Vartanian A. , Diderot and Descartes (Princeton, 1953).

Ornstein M. , The role of scientific societies in the seventeenth century (New York, 1913). For a discussion of later work on scientific societies, see Schofield R. E. , “Histories of scientific societies: Needs and opportunities for research”, History of science, ii (1963), 70–83.

Brown Harcourt , Scientific organizations in seventeenth-century France (1620–1680) (Baltimore, 1934).

Lenoble R. , Mersenne: Ou la naissance du mécanisme (Paris, 1943), 581.

See Correspondance du P. Marin Mersenne, religieux minime (Paris, 1932).

See Hall Marie Boas , “Oldenburg and the art of scientific communication”, British journal for the history of science, ii (1964–5), 277–90, p. 284.

The secretiveness of many scientists remains a problem for contemporary science. See, for example, the discussion by Hagstrom W. O. , The scientific community (New York, 1965), 86–98.

Brown H. , op. cit. (ref. 24), ch. 9.

Hall , op. cit. (ref. 27), 289.

Later international communication involving the Royal Society is reviewed by da C. Andrade E. N. and Martin D. C. , “The Royal Society and its foreign relations”, Endeavour, xix (1960), 72–80.

McKie D. suggests that these two journals gave rise to distinct patterns of scientific communications until the emergence of the specialist scientific journal in the late eighteenth century: “The scientific periodical from 1665 to 1798”, reprinted in Ferguson A. (ed.), Natural philosophy through the eighteenth century and allied topics (London, 1972), 125.

On Newton's influence in his immediate social circle, see also Manuel F. E. , Portrait of Newton (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), ch. 13, and Thackray A. , Atoms and powers (Cambridge, Mass., and London, 1970).

On later British Newtonianism, see, for example, Schofield R. E. , Mechanism and materialism (Princeton, 1970), and Thackray , op. cit. (ref. 33).

This is less true of Russia, however. Since Russian physical science was emerging in the same period as Newtonianism was being introduced, the main problems in the reception of Newtonianism were not those of entrenched opposition. See Boss V. , Newton and Russia (Cambridge, Mass., 1972).

Hall A. R. , in “Newton in France: A new view”, History of science, xiii (1975), 233–50, stresses that although Newton was recognized early in France, transfer of French allegiance to his theory was much slower. See also Thackray , Atoms and powers, ch. 4, for a review discussion of the extent of scientific communication between England and France in the early eighteenth century.

H. Guerlac discusses the importance of methodological contrasts in the difficulties of continental assimilation of Newtonian science in “Newton's changing reputation”, in Rockwood R. (ed.), Carl Becker's heavenly city revisited (Ithaca, 1958), 3–26, and in “Where the statue stood: Divergent loyalties to Newton in the eighteenth century”, in Wasserman Earl (ed.), Aspects of the eighteenth century (Baltimore, 1965), 317–34.

The Clarke-Leibniz correspondence and associated controversy forms a fascinating example of intellectual obstacles to the transmission of a new system of natural philosophy. See for example Iltis C. , “The Leibnizian-Newtonian debates: Natural philosophy and social psychology”, British journal for the history of science, vi (1973), 343–77.

See for example Thackray , op. cit. (ref. 33), 53.

Brunet P. , L'Introduction des theories de Newton en France au XVIII^e siècle avant 1738 (Paris, 1931); Levere T. H. , “Relations and rivalry: Interactions between Britain and the Netherlands in eighteenth-century science and technology”, History of science, ix (1970), 42–53.

Recent historical scholarship has re-examined the relative importance of these strands of Newtonianism. See for example, Hall A. R. , op. cit. (ref. 36). R. Fox suggests that Laplace was strongly influenced by the speculative Newtonian natural philosophy of the Scholia to the Principia and the Queries of the Opticks: “The rise and fall of Laplacian physics”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, iv (1974), 89–136.

Cohen I. B. , Franklin and Newton (Cambridge, Mass., 1966).

Kroon J. E. , “Boerhaave as professor-promoter”, Janus, xxiii (1918), 291–311.

See for example Gibbs F. W. , “Boerhaave and the botanists”, Annals of science, xiii (1957), 47–61, and “Boerhaave's chemical writings”, Ambix, vi (1958), 117–35; Lindeboom G. A. , Herman Boerhaave, the man and his work (London, 1968).

Stafleu F. A. , Linnaeus and the Linnaeans: The spreading of their ideas in systematic botany (1735–1789) (Utrecht, 1971).

See for example Williams L. Pearce , Michael Faraday (London, 1965); Spencer J. Brookes , “Boscovich's theory and its relation to Faraday's researches: An analytic approach”, Archive for history of exact sciences, iv (1967–8), 184–202; Heimann P. M. , “Faraday's theories of matter and electricity”, British journal for the history of science, v (1971), 235–57.

Boscovich R. J. , Theoria philosophiae naturalis (second, definitive, edition, Venice, 1763).

See for example Whyte L. L. , (ed.), Roger Joseph Boscovich (London, 1961); Olson R. , “The reception of Boscovich's ideas in Scotland”, Isis, lx (1969), 91–103.

See for example the study by Olson , op. cit. (ref. 48).

Guerlac H. , Lavoisier, the crucial year (Ithaca, 1961).

Guerlac H. , “The continental reputation of Stephen Hales”, Archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, iv (1951), 393–404.

Guerlac , op. cit. (ref. 50), 41.

ibid., 61. McKie D. , op. cit. (ref. 32), 127–30 discusses the importance of this new journal devoted to the more rapid publication of serious science.

White J. H. , A history of the phlogiston theory (London, 1932); Kahlbaum G. W. A. and Hoffmann A. , Die Einführung der Lavoisier'schen Theorie im besonderen in Deutschland (Leipzig, 1897).

Crosland M. P. , Historical studies in the language of chemistry (London, 1962), discusses the introduction of the new chemical nomenclature into Britain and other countries. Duveen D. I. and Klickstein H. S. , “A bibliographic study of the introduction of Lavoisier's Traité elémentaire de chimie into Great Britain and America”, Annals of science, x (1954), 321–38; idem, “The introduction of Lavoisier's chemical nomenclature into America”, Isis, xlv (1954), 278–92, 368–82. Leicester H. M. , “The spread of the theory of Lavoisier in Russia”, Chymia, v (1959), 138–44.

de Beer Gavin Sir , The sciences were never at war (London, 1960).

Two of the more famous examples of discussion of national scientific styles are Duhem P. , The aim and structure of physical theory, trans. Weiner P. P. (New York, 1962), and Merz J. T. , A history of European thought in the nineteenth century (Dover edn, 4 vols, New York, 1965), i, chs 1–3.

See for example Adams F. D. , “The Scottish school of geology”, Science, lxxx (1934), 365–8, espec. p. 366.

On this controversy, see for example Geikie A. , The founders of geology (Dover edn, New York, 1962); Gillispie C. C. , Genesis and geology (Cambridge, Mass., 1951).

Cantor G. N. , “Henry Brougham and the Scottish methodological tradition”, Studies in the history and philosophy of science, ii (1971), 69–70.

Dubbey G. M. , “The introduction of differential notation into Great Britain”, Annals of science, xix (1963), 37–48.

Cantor G. N. and Shapin Steven , “Phrenology in early nineteenth-century Edinburgh: An historiographical discussion”, Annals of science, xxxii (1975), 195–255.

Among other studies of the influence of Liebig through his students, see Rossiter Margaret W. , Justus Liebig and the Americans: The emergence of agricultural science, 1840–1880 (New Haven and London, 1975).

See for example Mendelsohn E. , “The emergence of science as a profession in nineteenth-century Europe”, in Hill K. (ed.), The management of scientists (Boston, 1964), 3–48; “Physical models and psychological concepts”, British journal for the history of science, ii (1964–5), 201–19. One recent valuable review of the Liebig laboratory compares it with the Scottish chemistry school of Thomas Thomson: Morrell J. B. , “The chemist breeders: The research schools of Liebig and Thomas Thomson”, Ambix, xix (1972), 1–46.

See for example Cardwell D. S. L. , The organisation of science in England (London, 1972), 59; Mendelsohn E. , op. cit. (ref. 64), 23–26; Orange A. D. , “The British Association for the Advancement of Science: The provincial background”, Science studies, i (1971), 315–29, and “The origins of the British Association for the Advancement of Science”, British journal for the history of science, vi (1972), 152–76.

This matter is discussed further in Dolby R. G. A. , “The transmission of two new scientific disciplines from Europe to America in the late nineteenth century”, Annals of science (forthcoming).

See for example Hull D. L. , Darwin and his critics (Cambridge, Mass., 1973).

Gasking E. B. , “Why was Mendel's work ignored?”, Journal of the history of ideas, xx (1959), 60–84.

For example, Goldberg S. has compared early reactions to special relativity in several countries and explored the role of fashions: “The role of fashion in scientific innovations: The case of Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity” (paper read at the British Society for History of Science Summer meeting, Canterbury, 1975).

For example, the first international Solvay Conference was important in diffusing interest in the quantum ideas of Planck, Einstein and others. See McCormmach R. , “Henri Poincaré and the Quantum Theory”, Isis, lviii (1967), 37–55.

Cohen Stanley , “The scientific establishment and the transmission of Quantum Mechanics to America”, Historical review, lxxvi (1971), 442–66.

See for example Shakow D. and Rapaport D. , The influence of Freud on American psychology (New York, 1964); Ruitenbeek H. M. , Freud and America (New York, 1966).

See for example Fleming D. and Bailyn B. , (eds), The intellectual migration: Europe and America 1930–1960 (Cambridge, Mass., 1969).

See for example Menzel H. , “Planned and unplanned scientific communications”, in Barber B. and Hirsch W. (eds), The sociology of science (New York, 1962), 417–41.

An epidemiological theory has been applied to the transmission of science in a paper by Nowakowska Maria , “Epidemical spread of scientific objects: An attempt of empirical approach to some problems of meta-science”, Theory and decision, iii (1973), 262–97.

See for example de S. Price D. J. , Science since Babylon (New Haven, 1961), 84–91.

See for example, the discussion and quotations from scientists in Hagstrom W. O. , The scientific community (New York, 1965), 177–84; Crane D. , “Fashion in science: Does it exist?”, Social problems, xvi (1969), 433–41; Dolby R. G. A. , “Debates over the theory of solution: A study of dissent in physical chemistry in the English-speaking world in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, vii (1976), 297–404.

See for example Barber B. and Lobell L. S. , “Fashion in women's clothes and the American social system”, Social forces, xxxi (1952), 124–31.

Crane D. , op. cit. (ref. 77), 440, fn.

Quoted by Hagstrom , op. cit. (ref. 77), 180.

See for example, Crosland M. P. , The Society of Arcueil. A view of French science at the time of Napoleon I (London, 1967); Fox R. , op. cit. (ref. 41).

Crane D. , op. cit. (ref. 3), 70–72.

Hagstrom W. , op. cit. (ref. 77), 182–3.

Dolby R. G. A. , “Social factors in the origin of a new science: The case of physical chemistry”, Historical studies in the physical sciences (forthcoming).

Watkins D. , “The N-Ray controversy” (paper given to the British Sociological Association Sociology of Science Study Group, Manchester, 26 November, 1969).

See for example, Barber B. , op. cit. (ref. 7). Barber's view is criticized by Barnes , “On the reception of scientific beliefs”, in Barnes Barry (ed.), Sociology of science (Harmondsworth, 1972), 275–7. See also Duncan S. S. , “The isolation of scientific discovery: Indifference and resistance to a new idea”, Science studies, iv (1974), 109–34.

See for example, Sprat T. , History of the Royal Society (1667), eds Cope J. I. and Jones H. W. (London, 1959). Sprat's summary of the resolutions of the society, pp. 61–62, make this especially clear.

See for example Lavoisier's remarks on the avoidance of error by trusting only the facts and restraining and simplifying reasoning, in his preface to his Traité élémentaire de chimie , translated as Elements of chemistry by Kerr Robert (Edinburgh, 1790), xvii and xviii. The same kind of comment has often been made by positivist scientists in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Cole S. , “Professional standing and the reception of scientific discoveries”, American journal of sociology, Ixxvi (1970), 286–306.

Cantor G. N. , “The reception of the wave theory of light in Britain: A case study illustrating the role of methodology in scientific debate”, Historical studies in the physical sciences, vi (1975), 109–32.

Olson Richard , in Scottish philosophy and British physics, 1750–1880 (Princeton, 1975), discusses more generally the role of methodological questions in British physics at this time, although his stress on the influence of Scottish common-sense philosophy on John Herschel blurs the methodological contrast between Herschel and Scottish opponents of the wave theory.

See for example Dolby , op. cit. (ref. 77).

See for example, Boring E. G. , “The psychology of controversy”, in History, psychology and science: Selected papers (New York, 1963), 67–84.

Nowotny Helga , “Controversies in science: Remarks on the different modes of production of knowledge and their use”, Zeitschrift für Soziologie, iv (1975), 34–45.

The studies by Dolby , op. cit. (ref. 77), and Cantor , op. cit. (ref. 90) illustrate the pattern.

For example, Geikie , op. cit. (ref. 59), 226–8 shows how circular the Wernerian arguments against the volcanic nature of basalt, obsidian and pumice seemed to a non-Wernerian (such as Geikie himself). Geikie also (pp. 326–9) describes early episodes in the controversy.

See for example, Feyerabend P. K. , Against method (London, 1975); Kuhn T. S. , The structure of scientific revolutions (Chicago, 1970), and “Reflections on my critics”, in Lakatos I. and Musgrave A. (eds), Criticism and the growth of knowledge (London, 1970).

See ref. 3.

Kuhn T. S. , The structure of scientific revolutions (Second edition, Chicago, 1970).

Crane D. , op. cit. (ref. 3), ch. 4.

See for example the passages from Darwin and Planck quoted by Kuhn T. S. , op. cit. (ref. 99), 151.

For example, a major factor limiting the growth of research applying thermodynamic methods to chemistry in the late nineteenth century was the lack of appropriate training for the vast majority of the chemists of the time. See Dolby , op. cit. (ref. 84).

This idea is discussed further below.

Crane D. , op. cit. (ref. 77), 438, suggests, for example, that separate communication networks can be constructed for the transmission of information and the acceptance of ideas.

Sociological research on the diffusion of technological innovations among non-scientists has shown that even when many people have become aware of an innovation through mass media, immediate personal contacts are far more important for most of them in raising their interest and in inducing them to try the innovation for themselves. See for example Katz E. and Lazarsfeld P. F. , Personal influence: The part played by people in the flow of mass communications (New York, 1955). This result does not apply automatically to men of science, as it is an inherent part of their activity to be receptive to (at least some) new ideas. It would be interesting, therefore, to investigate the extent to which personal influence is crucial in the communication of interest in and commitment to various kinds of scientific ideas.

Collins H. M. , “The TEA set: Tacit knowledge and scientific networks”, Science studies, iv (1974), 165–86.

Collins H. M. and Harrison R. G. , “Building a TEA laser: The caprices of communication”, Social studies of science, v (1975), 441–450.

Allport G. W. and Postman L. , The psychology of rumor (New York, 1947).

See for example Einbinder H. , The myth of the Britannica (London, 1964).

See for example Dolby , op. cit. (ref. 77).

See for example de S. Price D. J. , Little science, big science (New York, 1963), ch. 3; Crane D. , op. cit. (ref. 3); Griffith B. C. and Mullins N. C. , “Coherent social groups in scientific change”, Science, clxxvii (1972), 959–64.

Crane D. , “Social structure in a group of scientists: A test of the ‘Invisible College’ hypothesis”, American sociological review, xxxiv (1969), 335–52. On this point, Crane is developing unpublished work of Mullins (1966).

See for example Shils E. , “Metropolis and province in the intellectual community”, in The intellectuals and the powers and other essays (Chicago, 1972), 355–71; von Gizycki R. , “Centre and periphery in the international scientific community: Germany, France and Great Britain in the 19th Century”, Minerva, xi (1973), 474–94.

Dolby , op. cit. (ref. 84).

Ben-David J. , “Scientific productivity and academic organization in nineteenth century medicine”, American sociological review, xxv (1960), 828–43.

National pride was a factor in the French support of Academician Blondlot's ‘discovery’ of N-rays. See Price , op. cit. (ref. 76).

Price , op. cit. (ref. 111).

See for example, Cole S. Cole J. “Scientific achievement and recognition: A study in the operation of the reward system in science”, American sociological review, xxxii (1967), 377–90; idem, “Visibility and the structural bases of observability in science”, American sociological review, xxxiii (1968), 397–413; Cole J. , “Patterns of intellectual influence in scientific research”, Sociology of education, xliii (1970), 377–403.

Merton R. K. , “The Matthew effect in science”, Science, clix (1968), 56–63, reprinted in The sociology of science: Theoretical and empirical investigations (Chicago, 1973). See also Cole S. , “Professional standing and the reception of scientific discoveries”, American journal of sociology, lxxvi (1970), 286–306.

Katz and Lazarsfeld , op. cit. (ref. 105).

See in particular Wheeler L. P. Josiah Willard Gibbs (New Haven, 1951), Appendix iv, and also ch. vi.

Merton R. K. , Social theory and social structure (New York, 1957), 387–420. See also Glaser B. G. , Organizational scientists: Their professional careers (Indianapolis, 1964), ch. 2.

We should not accept Toulmin's Stephen suggestion that there are four (distinct) aspects or phases of innovation, mutation, selection, diffusion and eventual dominance. See his “Innovation and the problem of utilization”, in Gruber W. H. and Marquis D. G. (eds), Factors in the transfer of technology (Cambridge, Mass., 1969), 24–38.

For example, Descartes's suppression of Le monde after hearing of the condemnation of Galileo may be regarded as a case in which religious events affected the readiness of a writer to communicate his scientific ideas.

For example, in the aftermath of the First World War, there was considerable antagonism expressed in France to German science and scientists.

For example, the great economic importance of steam engines may be said to have been a factor in the attention paid to them in the early development of thermodynamics, especially in the work of S. Carnot. See for example, Cardwell D. S. L. , From Watt to Clausius (London, 1971), ch. 7.

Dolby , op. cit. (ref. 66).

For example, reports of the work of Ritter J. W. available in French were limited to second-hand accounts of experimental effects he had produced. French commentators rarely cited, and never discussed his own presentations of his ideas in German. Russell C. A. , in The history of valency (Leicester, 1971), remarks (p. 19) that, unlike Germany, France did not see any considerable alliance between speculative philosophy and natural science, and adds that the insulation of French chemistry from German influence was a remarkable feature of the early nineteenth century.

Dolby , op. cit. (ref. 84).

Schon D. A. , The displacement of concepts (London, 1963), republished as Invention and the evolution of ideas (London, 1967); Mulkay M. J. , “Conceptual displacement and migration in science: A prefatory paper”, Science studies, iv (1974), 205–34.