Science and marketing (3)

To a varying degree the convention and the practice of science transmission has been motivated by aims of promoting and providing support for individual scientists, or by straightforward marketing aims - mirroring the fact that the attitude of science towards the marketplace always was one of ......

In the 1940s, Robert K. Merton, the American sociologist, described the values of science in this way: "Four sets of institutional imperatives - universalism, communism, disinterestedness, organized scepticism - comprise the ..... of modern science."

By 'communism' he meant that scientific knowledge was regarded as common ......

He remarked that "the institutional conception of science as part of the public domain is linked with the imperative for communication of findings; secrecy is the ..... of this norm; full and open communication its enactment."

Thus, clashes between ideals about knowledge as a common good on the one hand and knowledge as an instrument and as the private property of ..... interests on the other hand is not a new phenomenon.

The case can, indeed, be made that modern science was born with a ..... of being connected to and alienated from the market-place at the same time.

H. Butterfield refers to the end of the 17th century when stating: "The passion to extend the scientific method to every branch of thought was at least equalled by the passion to make science serve the ..... of industry and agriculture, and it was accompanied by a sort of technological fervour".

Francis Bacon always laid stress on the immense utilitarian possibilities of science, and it is difficult to separate the interest shown in pure scientific truth from the curiosity in respect of useful inventions on the one part, or the inclination to ..... in fables and freakishness on the other.

A ..... conclusion from this brief discussion would be that ambiguity towards marketing is inherent to the convention of science transmission in the same way as ambiguity towards the marketplace is inherent to science.

The convention is a product of ideals about knowledge as a common good, but it encompasses, at the same time, the complicated relationship between science and private interests in the marketplace; it was, so to speak, ..... with frustrations regarding the issue of public and private interests in relation to knowledge.