304 ORGANIZED SCIENCE 



mores change with social evolution, of course, and today these argu- 

 ments are held in bad taste— and in the very worst of taste when they 

 are carried outside the community of science. 



Accepting these restraints on his freedom, the scientist secures 

 to himself the protection given by the community of others who 

 accept the same canons of good taste. Thus, for example, he can rely 

 on finding supporters for a justifiable claim to priority of discovery 

 that is threatened by apparently unscrupulous competitors. Remark- 

 ing that such support is often characterized in equal measure by 

 altruism and passion, Merton comments that: 



. . . the expression of disinterested moral indignation is a signpost 

 announcing the violation of a social norm. 



. . . scientific knowledge is not the richer or the poorer for having 

 credit given where credit is due; it is the social institution of science 

 and individual men of science that would suffer from repeated 

 failures to allocate credit justly. 



To provide for due recognition of individual achievement, the insti- 

 tution of science provides measures that run the entire gamut from 

 the (infrequent) headlined priority dispute to the (commonplace) 

 insistence of editors and referees that the relevant antecedent 

 achievement of another be recognized in a footnote to a manuscript 

 submitted for publication. Institutional protection also offers the 

 individual assurance that he can argue for his scientific views with- 

 out making himself a target for polemic abuse. Nor need he fear that 

 his opponents in scientific controversy will seek to turn against him 

 the coercive pressure of an outside authority (as Lysenko turned 

 against Vavilov the whole political apparatus of his country). And 

 valuing this protection afforded by the ivory tower, the scientist is, 

 with his fellows, committed to defense of that bulwark. 



A member of a college faculty who appeals the verdict of his col- 

 leagues to the institution's board of trustees shows something worse 

 than just "bad taste." To his colleagues (perhaps even to himself?) 

 he seems a traitor: he appeals for outside aid against the community 

 of which he has been a member. By his action all are threatened: 

 once the board of trustees is drawn in, where will they cease to 

 meddle in matters in which they have no competence whatever? A 

 scientist who appeals beyond the Invisible College to the general 

 body of society, which is board of trustees to science, "loses face" and 



