Reward or persuasion? The battle to define the meaning of a citation

[David E. Wojick]

Phil, 

I never said I had no use for schools of sociology that view science as a social process. I said I had no use for schools that take metaphors as explanations. Your confusion may be a symptom of your science. In fact I do research on science as a social process. My team just made what we think is a breakthru discovery of a phase change in co-author networks that occurs as new communities form. See http://www.osti.gov/innovation/research/diffusion/OSTIBettencourtKaiser.pdf

But I am indeed a rationalist, albeit not an 18th century one. I believe science exists because it is a successful instance of organized collective reasoning. It follows that the principal features of science are going to be based on the nature of that reasoning. Given this there is no reason to ignore the obvious explanations for citations in favor of esoteric hidden social mechanisms, although these may indeed exist as part of the process. 

As a student of scientific language and confusion I find the term "contextual meaning" to be almost meaningless. It seems to refer to everything that is going on when language is used, except the direct meaning of what is said. As such it is too broad and vague to be meaningful as scientific language. It is another metaphor. If you want to talk about specific social mehanisms that may affect the practice of citation, beyond the obvious ones of explanation and reference, that is fine. Let's see the evidence. What I object to is the a priori claim that such mechanisms dominate or define the practice of citation. They do not.

My best regards,
David 

>Adminstrative info for SIGMETRICS (for example unsubscribe):
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>David E. Wojick wrote:
>"So my view is that the terms reward and persuasion are incorrect when applied to the general theory of citations. Citations do not exist for either reason, rather they exist of the purpose of communication. Perhaps reward and persuasion are metaphorical, but then I have no use for schools of sociology that view metaphors as explanations."
>
>David,
>You are approaching the communication of science from an 18th century rationalist worldview; that is, communication is merely a transmission of facts and is completely devoid of contextual meaning.  From this viewpoint, a rational scientist needs no persuasion -- provide him with the facts and he will come to the same conclusions as the author.
>
>While you have no use for schools of sociology that view science as a social process, ask scientists themselves how they use citations.  They will tell you it is more than just providing the facts, ma'am.
>
>--Phil Davis
>
>-- 
>Philip M. Davis
>PhD Student
>Department of Communication
>301 Kennedy Hall
>Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
>email: pmd8 at cornell.edu
>phone: 607 255-2124
>https://confluence.cornell.edu/display/~pmd8/resume 

-- 

"David E. Wojick, Ph.D., PE" <WojickD at osti.gov>
Senior Consultant for Innovation
Office of Scientific and Technical Information
US Department of Energy
http://www.osti.gov/innovation/
391 Flickertail Lane, Star Tannery, VA 22654 USA
540-858-3136

http://www.bydesign.com/powervision/resume.html provides my bio and past client list. 
http://www.bydesign.com/powervision/Mathematics_Philosophy_Science/ presents some of my own research on information structure and dynamics.