Braun Tibor, Schubert András (szerk.): Szakértői bírálat (peer review) a tudományos kutatásban : Válogatott tanulmányok a téma szakirodalmából (A MTAK Informatikai És Tudományelemzési Sorozata 7., 1993)
IAN I. MITROFF and DARYL E. CHUBIN: Peer Review at the NSF: A Dialectical Policy Analysis
139 MITROFF & CHUBIN: PEER REVIEW AT THE NSF makes it difficult to know or assess 'error'; the term 'problematic' is more appropriate than such decisive terms as 'truth' or 'error', since complex social systems may not admit of such rigid or precise determinations. 61. P. Feyerabend, op. cit. note 10; A. H. Maslow, The Psychology of Science (New York: Harper and Row, 1966); D. C. McClelland, 'On the Dynamics of Creative Physical Scientists', in L. Hudson (ed.), The Ecology of Human Intelligence (Harmondsworth, Middx.: Penguin Books, 1970); Mitroff, op. cit. note 39. 62. McClelland, op. cit. note 61. 63. On this issue, Kuhn and Lakatos appear to agree. See S. S. Blume, Toward a Political Sociology of Science (New York: Free Press, 1974); T. S. Kuhn, 'The Essential Tension: Tradition and Innovation in Scientific Research', in C. W. Taylor and F. Barron (eds). Scientific Creativity, Its Recognition and Development (New York: Wiley, 1963), 341-54. 64. Mitroff, op. cit. note 39. 65. Mulkay, op. cit. note 6. 66. Scientists are not only aware of their relative position (for example, department or institution rank), but they tend to aggrandize their position relative to their perception of other departments and institutions. Sec T. Caplow and R. J. McGce, The Academic Marketplace (New York: Basic Books, 1958). 67. For a review, see Mulkay, op. cit. note 6; M. J. Mulkay, 'The Sociology of the Scientific Research Community', in I. Spiegel-Rösing ánd D. de S. Price (eds), Science, Technology and Society: A Cross-Disciplinary Perspective (Beverly Hills: Sage, 1977), 93-148; and P. Boffey, The Brain Bank of America (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1975). For a discussion of the institutional 'halo effect' which blurs the empirical distinction between prestige of institution and scientist's reputation (as a proxy for performance, quality of research, and so on), see H. Zuckerman, 'Stratification in American Science', in E. O. Laumann (ed.), Social Stratification: Theory and Research for the 1970s (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1970), 235-57. 68. Mitroff, op. cit. note 39. 69. See, for instance, Churchman and Feyerabend, ops. cit. note 10. 70. R. K. Merton, 'The Matthew Effect in Science', Science, Vol. 159 (5 January 1968), 56-63. 71. Mulkay, op. cit. note 67; Boffey, op. cit. note 67; Salomon, op. cit. note 8. See also D. K. Price, The Scientific Estate (Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press, 1965; and D. S. Greenberg, The Politics of Pure Science (Washington, DC: New American Library, 1967). 72. J. R. Cole and S. Cole, Social Stratification in Science (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973); J. Gaston, Originality and Competition in Science (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1973); Gaston, The Reward System in British and American Science (New York: Wiley-Interscience, 1978). 73. To quote an anonymous referee (for an earlier version of this paper) on decision-making behaviour: My hunch is that, as the uncertainty of peer evaluation increases, more and more of the elements of the dialectic are brought to bear so that in some cases, after 'objective' criteria have been used and are found not to distinguish between pairs of proposals, other more subjective and politically, controversial premises are used . . . and I think for quite defensible reasons.
