The Dynamics of Scientific Knowledge - Mapping Scientific Frontiers: The Quest for Knowledge Visualization - page 41

Even with a database that is completely up-to-date, we are still only able to create
maps that show where research fronts have been. These maps may reveal a fresh
view of where the action is and give a hint where it may be going. However, as we
expand the size of the database from 1 year to a decade or more, the map created
through citation analysis provides a historical, indeed historiographical, window on
the field that we are investigating.
From a global viewpoint, these maps show relationships among fields or
disciplines. The labels attached or embedded in the graphics reveal their semantic
connections and may hint at why they are linked to one another. Furthermore, the
maps reveal which realms of science or scholarship are being investigated today and
the individuals, publications, institutions, regions, or nations currently pre-eminent
in these areas.
By using a series of chronologically sequential maps, one can see how knowledge
advances. While maps of current data alone cannot predict where research will
go, they can be useful indicators in the hands of informed analysts. By observing
changes from year to year, trends can be detected. Thus, the maps become
forecasting tools. And since some co-citation maps include core works, even a
novice can instantly identify those articles and topics used most often by members
of the “invisible college.”
The creation of maps by co-citation clustering is a largely algorithmic process.
This stands in contrast to the relatively simple but arduous manual method we used
over 30 years ago to create a historical map of DNA research from the time of
Mendel up to the work of Nierenberg and others.
Samuel Bradford (1878-1948) referred to “a picture of the universe of discourse
as a globe, on which are scattered, in promiscuous confusion, the mutually related,
separate things we see or think about.” John Bernal (1901-1971), a prominent
international scientist and an X-ray crystallography scientist, was a pioneer in social
studies of science or “science of science”. His topic The Social Function of Science
(Bernal 1939 ) has been regarded as a classic in this field. To Bernal, science is
the very basis of philosophy. There was no sharp distinction between the natural
sciences and the social sciences for Bernal, and the scientific analysis of society was
an enterprise continuous with the scientific analysis of nature. For Bernal, there was
no philosophy, no social theory, and no knowledge independent of science. Science
was the foundation of it all.
Bernal, among others, created by laborious manual methods what we would
today describe as historiographs. However, dynamic longitudinal mapping was
made uniquely possible by the development of the ISI ® database. Indeed, it gave

birth to scientometrics and new life to bibliometrics.

1.3.2 Cases of Competing Paradigms

It is not uncommon for a new theory in science to meet its resistance. A newborn
theory may grow stronger and become dominant over time. On the other hand, it