Sociology Now, Census Update

and the new findings as well. In this way, long periods of normal science are punctu-
ated by these scientific breakthroughs.

The Role of the Scientist and Society

Until the sixteenth century, individual members of the Church or nobility financed
scientific research. This form of private support for science (as well as the arts) is called
patronage, and it enabled many influential scientists to conduct their research in the
absence of government or university jobs. Gradually, in the seventeenth and eighteenth
century, European scientists were increasingly supported by the government, through
subsidies and grants. Groups of scientists joined together into colleges and universi-
ties, under government sponsorship, to pursue their increasingly complex and expen-
sive research. By the twentieth century, most scientific breakthroughs were made by
professors, working in state-funded laboratories on university campuses.
Take, for example, the history of the Nobel Prize. During the nineteenth century,
European scientists were heavily supported by the government. But two world wars,
with a depression between, all but eliminated the money for government support in
Europe. At the same time, the development of graduate training in the sciences and the
space race with the Soviet Union after World War II propelled the United States into
scientific leadership in the world. As a result, the number of European scientists who
have won a Nobel Prize in the sciences has fallen, while the number of Americans has
grown dramatically (www.Nobelprize.org). (We should point out, however, that many
of the American Nobel laureates have been immigrants, who received their training in
Europe and came to the United States to escape Nazi or Communist regimes.)
Today, scientific research around the world is supported both by governments,
through grants for research, and by private companies, which employ scientists to
develop new products—everything from new types of paint to robots that can land
on the moon, from flavoring for soda to genetically modified crops that grow faster,
stronger, or more plentifully even in adverse climates.
Typically, private enterprise and government fund different aspects of research.
The government funds basic science—that is, scientific research that has no immedi-
ate application other than the furtherance of knowledge. Private companies are
interested in developing new products, and they fund research that has possibilities
for commercial application. In addition, large-scale scientific research requires so
much money in start-up costs that global scientific cooperation has become the norm,
as different groups, operating in different countries, often specialize in some smaller
piece of the larger puzzle.

SCIENCE AS AN INSTITUTION 515

Is Pluto a Planet?

In August 2006, astronomers “demoted” Pluto from

its status as the ninth planet to a new status as

“dwarf planet.” It is too small (one-fifth the size of

Earth’s moon), and its orbit is influenced by Nep-

tune’s. While some may mourn Pluto being kicked out

of the solar system, the decision also reveals how

science works. Scientists are constantly testing their theories

against empirical findings, refining and even rejecting theories

as the evidence no longer supports earlier reasoning. In science,

if new information does not support prevailing theory, the the-

ory is revisited—and revised or refined. Religious knowledge, by

contrast, must always refer to the received wisdom of a canon-

ical text like the Bible and therefore is more likely to interpret

the evidence to fit the theory.

Sociologyand ourWorld