3.Mathematics provides the quantitative foundation of all other sciences. Most
research is purely theoretical, but there is an applied branch, computer science.4.Social sciences concern human beings, their mental processes (psychology), cul-
ture (anthropology), social structures (sociology), history, economics, and polit-
ical science. There are several applied branches, including social work and
criminal justice.The Norms of Science
Like all social institutions, science has norms that govern interactions among scien-
tists and relationships between scientists and the rest of society and between scien-
tific institutions and other social institutions. These norms are understood to govern
these relationships and set the standards for scientific research. However, as with many
other institutional norms, they are honored and ignored in about equal measure.
Objectivity. The most important norm of science is objectivity,in which judgments
are based on empirical verification, not on personal feelings or opinions. Scientific
knowledge must be based on objective criteria, not on political or personal
preferences. Scientists must check their personal lives at the laboratory door, and
differences in class, race, and nationality should make no difference in procedure or
results. Anyone using the scientific method should be able to arrive at the same
conclusions—regardless of his or her personal characteristics.
But how often have you heard the results of research dismissed because of exactly
those characteristics? Can we trust social scientific research done by people who do
not have the experience they are studying? Would a White person simply be too biased
to arrive at any reliable conclusions about Black people? Or would a Black or White
person be too biased to reliably research his or her own group?
While a scientific universalism provides one pole, the social response to “advo-
cacy research” provides the other. Advocacy researchis undertaken to provide the
research necessary to support or promote a particular position. One “knows” what
one wants to find before undertaking the research, and one intends to use findings to
further a cause or group. At the turn of the last century, for example, a research field
called phrenology examined the size and shape of people’s heads and purported to find
factual evidence that women and non-White racial groups were intellectually inferior
to White men; therefore, they concluded, gender and racial inequality were “natural.”
(See Chapter 8.) In the twentieth century, the field of eugenics
sought to scientifically breed out “inferior” qualities of Jews and
other immigrant groups to create a more “pure” breeding stock
of Americans. While for empirically based objective science, see-
ing is believing, for advocacy research, it’s exactly the opposite:
Believing is seeing.
Common Ownership.A second norm of science is that scientific
knowledge should be open to everyone. Research results
should be public knowledge; data should always be shared
with colleagues. Technological advances in applied science can
be patented, but the pure research, the science behind the
technology, is available to all. Einstein never tried to patent his
theory of relativity, nor could he have.
The most common method of providing this access is
through publication in scholarly journals. Although there is no
SCIENCE AS AN INSTITUTION 511Private corporations inject
enormous amounts of money
into research for new drugs,
but they are guided by the
marketplace—not human
needs or the interests of the
scientific community—and
seek to control access to their
discoveries in order to increase
profits. n