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Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists Author(S): Thomas F

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Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists Author(S): Thomas F Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non-Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists Author(s): Thomas F. Gieryn Source: American Sociological Review, Vol. 48, No. 6 (Dec., 1983), pp. 781-795 Published by: American Sociological Association Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2095325 . Accessed: 20/10/2014 20:34 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. American Sociological Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to American Sociological Review. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 128.173.127.127 on Mon, 20 Oct 2014 20:34:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions BOUNDARY-WORK AND THE DEMARCATION OF SCIENCE FROM NON-SCIENCE: STRAINS AND INTERESTS IN PROFESSIONAL IDEOLOGIES OF SCIENTISTS* THOMAS F. GIERYN Indiana University The demarcation of science from other intellectual activities-long an analytic problemfor philosophersand sociologists-is here examinedas a practicalproblem for scientists. Construction of a boundary between science and varieties of non-science is useful for scientists' pursuit of professional goals: acquisition of intellectual authority and career opportunities; denial of these resources to "pseudoscientists"; and protection of the autonomy of scientific research from political interference. "Boundary-work"describes an ideological style found in scientists' attempts to create a public imagefor science by contrastingit favorably to non-scientific intellectual or technical activities. Alternativesets of characteristics availablefor ideological attributionto science reflect ambivalences or strains within the institution:science can be made to look empiricalor theoretical,pure or applied. However, selection of one or another descriptiondepends on which characteristics best achieve the demarcationin a way thatjustifies scientists' claims to authorityor resources. Thus, "science" is no single thing: its boundariesare drawnand redrawn inflexible, historicallychanging and sometimesambiguous ways. Philosophersand sociologists of science have a demarcation between scientific and other long struggled with the "problem of demar- knowledgeis a poor heuristicfor the sociology cation": how to identify unique and essen- of science (Collins, 1982:300).Characteristics tial characteristicsof science that distinguishit once proposed as capable of distinguishingsci- from other kinds of intellectual activities. ence from non-science are found to be common Comte ([1853] 1975:72)distinguished positive among intellectual activities not ordinarily science from theology and metaphysics in his labeled scientific, or they are found not to be evolutionarylaw of three stages, arguingthat typical features of science-in-practice (e.g., only science used "reasoningand observation" Knorret al., 1980;Elkana, 1981:41;Broad and to establish laws of "succession and re- Wade, 1982:8-9). Some dismiss demarcation semblance." Popper (1965:34, 41) proposed as a "pseudo-problem"(Laudan, 1983:29). "falsifiability"as a criterionof demarcation:if Continuing debates over the possibility or a theory cannot, in principle, be falsified (re- desirabilityof demarcatingscience from non- futed) by empirical data, it is not scientific. science are, in one sense, ironic. Even as Merton (1973: Chap. 13) explains the special sociologists and philosophers argue over the abilityof modernscience to extend "certified" uniqueness of science among intellectual ac- knowledge as a result, in part, of the in- tivities, demarcationis routinelyaccomplished stitutionalizationof distinctive social norms in practical, everyday settings: education ad- (communism, universalism, disinterestedness ministrators set up curricula that include and organized skepticism). chemistry but exclude alchemy; the National Recent studies, however, suggest that at- Science Foundationadopts standardsto assure tempts to demarcate science have failed that some physicists but no psychics get (Bohme, 1979:109), and that the assumption of funded; journal editors reject some manu- scriptsas unscientific. How is the demarcation of science accomplishedin these practicalset- *Direct all correspondence to: Thomas F. Gieryn, tings, far removed from apparentlyfutile at- Department of Sociology, Indiana University, tempts by scholars to decide what is essential Bloomington, IN 47405. and unique about science? Demarcationis not Many people provided helpful suggestions, among just an analytical problem: because of consid- them: David Zaret, Robert Althauser, Howard erable materialopportunities and professional Becker, George Bevins, William Corsaro, Elihu Ger- son, Allen Grimshaw, Robert Merton, Nicholas Mul- advantagesavailable only to "scientists," it is fins, Bernice Pescosolido, Whitney Pope, Charles no mere academic matter to decide who is Powers, Sal Restivo, and Stephen Zehr. My devel- doing science and who is not. opment of the concept of "boundary-work" bene- This paper restates the problemof demarca- fited from conversations with Steve Woolgar. tion: characteristics of science are examined American Sociological Review 1983, Vol. 48 (December:781-795) 781 This content downloaded from 128.173.127.127 on Mon, 20 Oct 2014 20:34:19 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 782 AMERICAN SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW not as inherentor possibly unique, but as part [their]privilege" through "expediential ration- of ideologicalefforts by scientists to distinguish alizations of . material interests" (Bendix, their work and its productsfrom non-scientific 1963:xi,449). The two theories are sometimes intellectual activities. The focus is on presented as mutually exclusive and compet- boundary-workof scientists: their attribution ing: Sutton et al. (1956:12)"reject" the theory of selected characteristicsto the institutionof that "ideologies simply reflect . economic science (i.e., to its practitioners, methods, self-interest,"while Seider (1974:812)finds the stock of knowledge, values and work organi- "Marx-Mannheimtheory was . more useful zation) for purposes of constructing a social than Sutton's role-strain theory in predicting boundarythat distinguishes some intellectual the content of public political ideology" of activities as "non-science." Boundary-workis business leaders. analyzed as a rhetorical style common in The effectiveness of strain and interest "public science" (Turner, 1980:589;cf. Men- theories has been impeded by "theoretical delsohn, 1977:6), in which scientists describe clumsiness" (Geertz, 1973:196) resulting, in science for the public and its political au- part, from an "anarchy of linguistic dif- thorities, sometimes hopingto enlarge the ma- ferences" (Oakeshott, 1980:viii;on the diverse terialand symbolic resourcesof scientists or to definitionsof "ideology," cf. Mannheim,1936; defend professional autonomy. The paper ex- Birnbaum, 1960; Lichtheim, 1967; Gouldner, amines both style and content of professional 1976; Larrain, 1979). The two theories agree ideologies of scientists, as illustratedin three substantially:both see ideologies as symbolic examples: first, public addresses and popular representations(whether sets of ideas, beliefs, writings of John Tyndall, an effective "states- values, wishes, consciousnesses or world- man for science" in late Victorian England; views); both suggest that ideologies selectively second, argumentsover the scientific status of distort social "reality";both assume that ade- phrenology in early 19th-centuryEdinburgh; quate explanationrequires examinationof the third, a 1982 policy report by the National social context of ideological statements, Academy of Sciences on scientific communi- focusing on structuralsources and functional cation and national security. consequences of ideas. To add to the confu- sion, followers of Parsons allow that interests are SOCIOLOGICALTHEORIES OF "certainly an important determinant of IDEOLOGY ideological reaction" (White, 1961:9), while Marx traced the origins of ideology to the de- Two long-standing theoretical orientations sire of rulingclasses to conceal contradictions dominatesociological studies of ideology, and between the means and the social relations of these are especially visible in analyses of occu- production(cf. Larrain, 1979:45-61). pationalor professionalideologies (cf. Carlton, Geertz has taken two steps towardclarifying 1977:24-28;Geertz, 1973:201).Strain theories sociological theories of ideology. First, he are associated with Parsons (1967:139-65, rightlysuggests that strainand interesttheories 1951:331-54): ideologies provide "evaluative need not be incompatible:an ideology can, at integration"in the face of conflictingdemands, once, smooth inconsistencies and advance competing expectations and inevitable am- interests (Geertz, 1973:201). Second, Geertz bivalences of social life. They are symp- recommends that sociologists examine the toms-as well as symbolic resolutions-of rhetorical style of ideological statements (cf. role strain, contradiction, and disequilibrium Dibble, 1973). Both strainand interesttheories (White, 1961; Sutton et al.,
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