Objectivity, honesty, and integrity: How American scientists talked about their virtues, 1945-2000.

IF 1.1 3区 哲学 Q2 HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
History of Science Pub Date : 2024-09-01 Epub Date: 2024-01-08 DOI:10.1177/00732753231206773
Kim M Hajek, Herman Paul, Sjang Ten Hagen
{"title":"Objectivity, honesty, and integrity: How American scientists talked about their virtues, 1945-2000.","authors":"Kim M Hajek, Herman Paul, Sjang Ten Hagen","doi":"10.1177/00732753231206773","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>What kind of people make good scientists? What personal qualities do scholars say their peers should exhibit? And how do they express these expectations? This article explores these issues by mapping the kinds of virtues discussed by American scientists between 1945 and 2000. Our wide-ranging comparative analysis maps scientific <i>virtue talk</i> across three distinct disciplines - physics, psychology, and history - and across sources that typify those disciplines' scientific ethos - introductory textbooks, book reviews, and codes of ethics. We find that, when inducting students into a discipline, evaluating peers, or codifying their professional standards, postwar American scientists routinely named virtues like carefulness, objectivity, and honesty. They applied such virtues not only directly to scholars' characters, minds, and attitudes (thereby equating virtues with <i>personal qualities</i>), but also to their methods, modes of reasoning, and working habits (in the form of what we call <i>virtue-qualifiers</i>). Strikingly, we find that physicists, psychologists, and historians drew upon largely similar repertoires of virtue. For all of them, scientific work required carefulness, thoroughness, and accuracy. Not all virtues, however, were equally important in all disciplines (notably objectivity), nor did each ethos-forming genre place equal emphasis on the directly personal nature of such virtues. All in all, our research establishes an extended framework for understanding the ways virtues remained present in postwar American scientific discourse writ large.</p>","PeriodicalId":50404,"journal":{"name":"History of Science","volume":" ","pages":"442-469"},"PeriodicalIF":1.1000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11360276/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"History of Science","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00732753231206773","RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"哲学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2024/1/8 0:00:00","PubModel":"Epub","JCR":"Q2","JCRName":"HISTORY & PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

What kind of people make good scientists? What personal qualities do scholars say their peers should exhibit? And how do they express these expectations? This article explores these issues by mapping the kinds of virtues discussed by American scientists between 1945 and 2000. Our wide-ranging comparative analysis maps scientific virtue talk across three distinct disciplines - physics, psychology, and history - and across sources that typify those disciplines' scientific ethos - introductory textbooks, book reviews, and codes of ethics. We find that, when inducting students into a discipline, evaluating peers, or codifying their professional standards, postwar American scientists routinely named virtues like carefulness, objectivity, and honesty. They applied such virtues not only directly to scholars' characters, minds, and attitudes (thereby equating virtues with personal qualities), but also to their methods, modes of reasoning, and working habits (in the form of what we call virtue-qualifiers). Strikingly, we find that physicists, psychologists, and historians drew upon largely similar repertoires of virtue. For all of them, scientific work required carefulness, thoroughness, and accuracy. Not all virtues, however, were equally important in all disciplines (notably objectivity), nor did each ethos-forming genre place equal emphasis on the directly personal nature of such virtues. All in all, our research establishes an extended framework for understanding the ways virtues remained present in postwar American scientific discourse writ large.

客观、诚实和正直:1945-2000 年美国科学家如何谈论他们的美德。
什么样的人才能成为优秀的科学家?学者们认为他们的同行应该表现出哪些个人品质?他们又是如何表达这些期望的?本文通过描绘 1945 年至 2000 年间美国科学家讨论的美德类型来探讨这些问题。我们进行了广泛的比较分析,绘制了物理学、心理学和历史学这三个不同学科的科学美德讨论,以及这些学科科学精神的典型来源--入门教科书、书评和道德规范。我们发现,战后美国科学家在对学生进行学科入门教育、评价同行或编纂职业标准时,经常会提到细心、客观和诚实等美德。他们不仅将这些美德直接应用于学者的性格、思想和态度(从而将美德等同于个人品质),而且还应用于他们的方法、推理模式和工作习惯(以我们称之为美德限定符的形式)。令人吃惊的是,我们发现物理学家、心理学家和历史学家对美德的利用大体相似。对他们来说,科学工作都需要细心、彻底和准确。然而,并非所有美德在所有学科中都同等重要(尤其是客观性),而且每种精神形成流派都同样强调这些美德的直接个人性质。总之,我们的研究为理解战后美国科学话语中美德的存在方式建立了一个扩展框架。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
History of Science
History of Science 综合性期刊-科学史与科学哲学
CiteScore
1.50
自引率
0.00%
发文量
15
审稿时长
>12 weeks
期刊介绍: History of Science is peer reviewed journal devoted to the history of science, medicine and technology from earliest times to the present day. Articles discussing methodology, and reviews of the current state of knowledge and possibilities for future research, are especially welcome.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信