The Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge - Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization - page 40

“Three Blind Men and an Elephant” is a widely told folktale in China. The
story probably started in Han Dynasty (202 BC-220 AD) (Kou and Kou 1976 ).
The story was later expanded to six blind men in India. As the folktale goes, six
blind men went to figure out what the elephant looks like. The first one approached
the elephant and felt the elephant's body. He claimed: “The elephant is very like a
wall!” The second one feeling the tusk said, “It is like a spear!” The third one took
the elephant's trunk and said, “It is like a snake!” The fourth touched the knee and
shouted, “It is like a tree!” The fifth touched the ear and thought it was like a fan.
The sixth, seizing on the swinging tail and, was convinced that the elephant must be
like a rope. They could not agree what an elephant is really like.
The moral of this folktale is that we are in a similar situation in which scientists
receive all sorts of messages about scientific frontiers. Actor Network Theory
(ANT) was originally proposed as a sociological model of science (Latour 2005 ;
Callon et al. 1986 ). According to this model, the work of scientists consists of the
enrolment and juxtaposition of heterogeneous elements - rats, test tubes, colleagues,
journal articles, grants, papers at scientific conferences, and so on - which need
continual management. Scientists simultaneously reconstruct social contexts - labs
simultaneously rebuild and link the social and natural contexts upon which they act.
Examining inscriptions is a key approach used for ANT. The other is to “follow
the actor,” via interviews and ethnographic research. Inscriptions include journal
articles, conference papers, presentations, grant proposals, and patents. Inscriptions
are the major products of scientific work (Latour 2005 ; Callon et al. 1986 ). In
Chap. 3 , we will describe co-word analysis, which was originally developed for
analyzing inscriptions. Different genres of inscriptions may send messages to
scientists. On the one hand, messages from each genre of inscriptions form a
snapshot of scientific frontiers. For example, journal publications may provide a
snapshot of the “head” of the elephant; conference proceedings may provide the
“legs”; and textbooks may provide the “trunk”. On the other hand, messages in
different “bottles” must be integrated at a higher level, i.e. the “elephant” level, to
be useful as guidance to scientists and engineers.
Mapping scientific frontiers involves several disciplines, from philosophy of
science, sociology of science, to information science, scientometrics, and informa-
tion visualization. Each individual discipline has its own research agenda and prac-
tices, its own theories and methods. On the other hand, mapping scientific frontiers
by its very nature is interdisciplinary. One must transcend disciplinary boundaries so
that each contributing approach can fit into the context. Otherwise, the Tower of Ba-
bel is not only a story in the Bible, it could be a valid summary of the fate of new gen-
erations' efforts in achieving the “holy grail” of standing on the shoulders of giants.

1.3.1 Science Mapping

Science maps depict the spatial relations between research fronts, which are areas
of significant activity. Such maps can also simply be used as a convenient means of
depicting the way research areas are distributed and conveying added meaning to
their relationships.