科学中的优势积累:经验检验与理论反思

Testing and Rethinking the Hypothesis of Cumulative Advantage in Science

默顿提出的优势积累理论经由朱克曼等人的研究和发展,已在包括科学社会学、职业生涯研究、生命历程分析、代际关系研究等领域得到广泛应用和讨论,成为解释不平等现象的一般机制。在对科学家的学术成长和分层机制做深入考察时,优势积累理论既得到了众多经验证据的支持,形成了自洽的分析范式,也面临着一些相反的经验证据的挑战,难以解决的理论难题,以及学术和社会背景的局限。解析和反思优势积累理论,对理解科学社会学的中国化等问题具有一定的启示意义。

Through the research and development of Zuckerman and others, Merton＇s cumulative advantage theory has been widely applied and discussed in the fields like sociology of science, career research, life course analysis, and intergenerational relationship research, and treated as a general mechanism for explaining inequality. During the indepth investigation of the growth and stratifica tion mechanism, cumulativeadvantage theoryreceives support of numerous empirical evidences and formed the consistentanalysis paradigm, However,it isfound that thetheory ischallengedby some em pirical evidence,and facing some difficult theoretical problems as well as the limitation of its academ ic and social background. Analyzing and rethinking the cumulativeadvantage theory may provide some insight into the localization of the sociology of science.