Merton the founder of the sociology of science Even his enemies admit that Merton is the founder of the sociology of science. When he published his classic Science, Technology, and Society in Seventeenth-Centiiry England in 1938. the sociology of science was not a recognized field. Fifty years later, an abundance of programs of instruction and centers of research in social studies of science and technology can be found in the United States and Europe, and the status of sociology of science as an academic subdiscipline is beyond question. To be sure, there were other books produced on science, technology, and society at the time of Merton's publication,
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