IV. Reflections On the Measurement of Science
Abstract
IV. Reflections On the Measurement of Science SAGE Publications, Inc.1977DOI: 10.1177/016224397700200204 Arnold Thackray Department of History and Sociology of Science Edgar Fahs Smith Hall D6 University of Pennsylvania Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104 Introduction Measure is a quality much-admired in the abstract. The Horation dictum -- that "there is measure in all things" -- knows its greatest successes in the field of natural science. Even there the adoption of quantitative modes has not been especially rapid, complete, or devoid of controversy. Nonetheless, measurement has come to be perceived as central to the character and critical for the success of the scientific enterprise.1 Science and society being of a piece, it should occasion no surprise that attempts to extend a metric from the natural to the social sphere and even to measure science itself have a rich, complex, and variegated history. That history has recently been moved to a new level and taken on fresh saliency as a result of actions by the National Science Board. The Board has committed itself to what, in its own words, is the ambitious task of developing "a set of indices which would reveal the strengths and weaknesses of U.S. science and technology, in terms