Talk:Mertonian norms

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Title

Should Cudos be CUDOS? There is already an article named CUDOS for something different. Bubba73 (talk), 15:59, 19 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Rename?

Surely this should be under "Mertonian norms" with a redirect from the Cudos disambig? Turkeyphan^t 18:58, 19 November 2008 (UTC)[reply]

No we should keep Cudos as that is an accepted term with a life of its own. MaxPont (talk) 16:48, 25 December 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm a scientist and I have never heard of CUDOS, but I have heard of Merton's norms. This article does not describe them well at all. It's an awful misrepresentation of Merton's ideas. 121.44.149.136 (talk) 03:54, 7 September 2014 (UTC)[reply]

I agree with the user above, and am rewriting this article to present Mertonian norms rather than CUDOS, which seems to be more of academic interest to sociologists of science than historical interest to Mertonian norms themselves. Someone so inclined is welcome to create a separate page for CUDOS if they are particularly useful, again I have never heard of them in scientific context so wonder if it is a contemporary academic sociology topic (either way, the article does not benefit from being centred around them) Louis Maddox (talk) 13:28, 4 April 2016 (UTC).[reply]

My experience has been of CUDOs (or CUDO, osmetimes CUDOS) being used as the name of Merton's norms, as the term is derived from the norms themselves. My experience, however, is in Norway so it can't be directly applied to English language Wikipedia, even if several of the places I've encountered it is English-language. It seems to be an area of some inconsistency, both here on wikipedia (as evident by this talk page) and elsewhere. --Karlinator (talk) 23:31, 10 December 2019 (UTC)[reply]

OS

Isn't it organized scepticism, not originality and scepticism? Turkeyphan^t 12:44, 16 January 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Yes, for Mertonian norms, but CUDOS as it has been used by Ziman and other contemporary authors define it as: Communalism, Universalism, Disinterestedness, Originality, and Scepticism. MaxPont (talk) 16:33, 17 March 2009 (UTC)[reply]

No it isn't organized scepticism for CUDOS. (Maxpont, by trying to be polite a quick read of the word yes looks like you agree with Turkeyphant when you disagree.)

Although not the original source, The Scientific Endeavor by Jeffrey A. Lee isbn 0-8053-4596-5 on page 57 states; "Later Ziman added Originality under the acronym CUDOS" So if you are talking about CUDOS or "ethos of science" as we are here "originality and scepticism" appears to be the correct expansion.

The original "scientific norms" did not appear to have "organized scepticism" but rather just scepticism. The organizied appears added to fit the new acronym.

Thus the two term while related, CUDOS is a later fork and is not the same as Mertonian norms and the two cannot be simply merged.

Turkeyphant's "correction" should be reversed to 19 November 2008. Strider22 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:39, 1 April 2009 (UTC).[reply]

To those above, this article is about Mertonian norms. CUDOS is a post-hoc mnemonic, and is confusing to be used to describe Merton's principles, which were not ordered in this way. To whoever wrote above "the original scientific norms did not appear to have organized scepticism"... if you pick up a copy of the original text, by Merton, which this article is about, "organized scepticism" is right there. Ziman is a revision of Merton's work as far as I can tell, and if it is substantial enough then it can have its own page, or someone can provide further detail in the subsection following the description of Merton's four norms. I've extended this article from a stub about CUDOS to a fuller description, retaining Merton's original ordering. Louis Maddox (talk) 19:54, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Scientist vs. Men of Science

Although not an inclusive term (and therefore slightly violates the imperative of universalism), men of science is the term used by Merton in 1942 and then again in a 1973 republication. Is it more appropriate - if this article is dealing with the Mertonian norms as established by The Normative Structure of Science that this term be used over Scientist. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.136.209 (talk) 01:23, 27 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Humility

Humility was also part of the list on Merton's paper: "If the institution of science placed great value only on originality, scientists would perhaps attach even more importance to recognition of priority than they do. But, of course, this value does not stand alone. It is only one of a complex set making up the ethos of science - disinterestedness, universalism, organized scepticism [sic], communism of intellectualism property, and humility being some of the others."(page 303, "Priorities in Scientific Discovery", from The Sociology of Science, 1957). 1:50, 13 December 2011 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.244.110.42 (talk)

Conformism

I note that "Originality" does not have any "couter-norm": what about conformism (highly present in scientific milieu, I guess...)?

Also, where do these counter-norms come from? There is no cited ref.

denis 'spir' (talk) 08:17, 6 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

It looks like this was already removed, perhaps due to lack of citation. Originality was not one of the original Mertonian norms in any case, if extended discussion of 'CUDOS' principles by Ziman warrants a place on Wikipedia it ought have its own page Louis Maddox (talk) 19:54, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Communism or Communalism?

The article currently says "communalism" but Merton wrote "communism" in 1942. Mike Linksvayer (talk) 19:22, 15 August 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed - the original term should be used, it is quoted by others referencing this work in popular discussion (I just saw it here), I'm not sure if there's some political motivation behind using a similar term but it's inappopriate. Merton is clear: ' "Communism", in the nontechnical and extended sense of common ownership of goods, is a second integral element of the scientific ethos." Since this has already been raised and not responded to in months, I'm going to change the entry. Louis Maddox (talk) 13:03, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

I was posting the same question :-) I'm going to change the Robert K. Merton article that still say "communalism". Aubrey (talk) 16:50, 29 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

"Communism" is confusing and misleading - any normal person would immediately think of the political system and the troubled history of the 20th century. I blame Merton for the error. Merton was writing during the Red Scare and McCarthy eras; he had to be aware of this. What was his motivation for picking this wording? Wikipedia commonly changes wordings to reflect modern norms and spellings, so why is this any different? 157.131.250.246 (talk) 10:22, 7 April 2021 (UTC)[reply]

CUDOS coatrack

CUDOS is based on mertonian norms but it is not an expression of mertonian norms. That makes its prominent inclusion a coatrack. It needs to be demoted to a 'later developments' or 'variants' section. TMLutas (talk) 21:11, 8 February 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Great idea, done Louis Maddox (talk) 19:54, 4 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

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Disinterestedness

The original work leans into disinterestedness as an institutional norm explaining the result of lack of individual egoism. The wording in the article currently makes the conflation the original text explicitly warns against ("Such equivalencies confuse institutional and motivational levels of analysis.")

I'm taking off on a plane right now or I'd work on it more. Soulsynapse (talk) 19:53, 23 December 2023 (UTC)[reply]