Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
Without the further evidence that I will examine in the remaining chap-
ters of this topic, the reader may (not undeservedly) be quite skeptical of the
supposition that the historical reach of one individual, such as Bacon, could
be this long. At this point I can only ask for patience as I continue to make
my case. But while our attention is still focused on the seventeenth century,
I would like to mention some support that my position finds, not only in its
agreement with the Merton thesis, but also in the clarity it brings to some of
the debate that has surrounded the interpretation of this sociologist's work.
Critics of Merton's theory reject a premise that rhetoricians are inclined
to share with sociologists, the supposition that career choices, though seem-
ingly having to do merely with technical or private concerns, cannot realis-
tically be divorced from public ones. Like most others who have forcefully
opposed Merton's position, Hugh Kearney misses this problem when he
objects to the pragmatic character of the scientific reforms endorsed by
figures like Comenius and Hartlib.
47
Since the distinctive attribute of the
new science was its theoretical power, Kearney argues that the promise of
applicability that figured so prominently in the religious rationale offered by
Bacon, Comenius, Sir Thomas Gresham, and Hartlib could not have pro-
vided a workable “blueprint” for the kind of science undertaken by Newton
and Boyle. Similar arguments have been made by James Carroll, T. K. Rabb,
A. Rupert Hall, and Richard Westfall.
48
Uniformly, these scholars assume
that a Puritan motive would matter only if it were somehow a proximate
cause of scientific work. But proximate causes are not the only necessary
causes, and so the rise of the scientific enterprise cannot be accounted for,
as John Henry argues, on such strictly “internalist” grounds; external social
factors are equally vital.
49
The specific intellectual motives that give rise
to scientific outcomes can only operate upon persons who have first been
drawn into some social circle in which such activities are occurring, and
what draws them are values that link science with broader societal concerns.
The premise behind Merton's thesis, we might say, was that social
motives are logically prior to and distinct from personal and intellectual
ones, that the passageway that leads into the technical sphere must also
pass through the public sphere. This principle is illustrated by one dramatic
change in the demographics of science that came somewhat later in its
history, the explosion of Jewish representation in scientific vocations that
occurred late in the nineteenth century. So long as Jewish communities
had remained closed to the Gentile world, the intellectual talent that might
have been channeled into science was consistently directed into other pur-
suits, rabbinical studies more often than not. But as secularization brought
