Resistance by scientists to scientific discovery.

In the study of the history and sociology of science, there has been a relative lack of attention to one of the interesting aspects of the social process of discovery-the resistance on the part of scientists themselves to scientific discovery. General and specialized histories of science and biographies and autobiographies of scientists, as well as intensive discussions of the processes by which discoveries are made and accepted, all tend to make, at the most, passing reference to this subject. In two systematic analyses of the social process of scientific discovery and invention, for example-analyses which tried to be as inclusive of empirical fact and theoretical problem as possible-there is only passing reference to such resistance in the one instance and none at all in the second (1). This neglect is all the more notable in view of the close scrutiny that scholars have given the subject of resistance to scientific discovery by social groups other than scientists. There has been a great deal of attention paid to resistance on the part of economic, technological, religious, and ideological elements and groups outside science itself (1-3). Indeed, the tendency of such elements to resist seems sometimes to be emphasized disproportionately as against the support which they also give to science. In the matter of religion, for example, are we not all a little too much aware that religion has resisted scientific discovery, not enough aware of the large support it has given to Western science? (4, 5). This is the text of a lecture delivered 28 December 1960 at the New York meeting of tLhe AAAS. 596 themselves sometimes resist scientific discovery clashes, of course, with the sterotype of the scientist as "the open-minded man." The norm of open-mindedness is one of the strongest of the scientist's values. As Philipp Frank has recently put it, "Every influence of moral, religious, or political considerations upon the acceptance of a theory is regarded as 'illegitimate' by the so-called 'community of scientists ." " And Robert Oppenheimer emphasizes the "importance" of "the open mind,"' in a-book by that title, as a value not only for science but for society as a whole (6). But values alone, and especially one value by itself , cannot be a sufficient basis for explaining human behavior. However strong a value is, however large its actual influence on behavior, it usually exerts this influence only in conjunction with a number …