Umbrella and Polytheistic Scientific Disciplines and Their Elites

The relationship between scientific disciplines and other units of organization such as specialties and research areas has received less attention in recent discussions than have processes of development within these sub-units.1 Specialist communities have been seen as the locus of scientific advance and their growth and decay considered in terms of papers and personnel.2 The context within which such communities arise and change is not seen as affecting their development, and scientific change often reduces to the simple addition of new areas. Disciplines act as the framework for such communities but do not themselves intervene in the knowledge production process.3 Systematic differences between disciplines which impinge upon scientific practices are rarely considered and disciplines appear to be little more than agglomerations of autarchic communities where the real work is done. As in the Kuhnian4 view, scientific communities exhibit mechanical solidarity based on a common 'paradigm'5 within, but no clear form of solidarity exists between them. Simple differentiation, however, does not imply a functional division of labour and there is no necessary reason for organic solidarity to exist between mechanically solidaristic groups. Rather than viewing scientific knowledge as advancing through revolutionizing invisible colleges,6 I suggest it would be more fruitful to examine the different ways in which scientific production is organized, and the concomitant variations in knowledge structures.