try to convert other scientists to their point of view.
Recently, sociologists of science have been actively
investigating how social interaction processes affect
the development of social consensus regarding a scientific
method, a theory, or even the appropriatein terpretation
of empirical evidence (e.g., Collins 1981,
Latour 1980, Pinch 1981). Developing a high degree
of social concensus among scientists is a major objective
of marketing strategies for scientific theories.
Science Is Subjective
The presumed objectivity of science is a key characteristic
of the P/E approach that currently dominates
marketing and related social science disciplines.
However, this aura of objectivity has been steadily
eroding for years across all sciences, including physics
(see Zukav 1979). All pretensions to objectivity
(in this narrow sense) disappear on adopting an R/C
perspective on science.
P/E approaches tend to treat scientists' perceptions
or sense impressions naively as providing objective,
unbiased representations of the real world.
Thus, empirical observations (manifestations of scientists'
sense impressions) are treated as objective data
that are independent of any theory. In contrast, the
R/C perspective recognizes that even so-called direct
perceptions are not objective but are influenced by a
multitude of factors, including relevant past experiences
and training. For this reason different scientists
may examine the same data and perceive entirely different
meanings (Stent 1975).
Here we consider the process by which scientific
meaning is developed. There are two aspects of this
process, one psychological and the other sociological.
No less a scientist than Einstein (1936) has noted the
psychological aspects quite clearly:
Outo f the multitudeo f our sensee xperiencesw e take,
mentallya nd arbitrarilyc,e rtainr epeatedlyo ccurring
complexes of sense impressions . . . and we attribute
to them a meaning-the meaning of the bodily
object. Consideredlo gically this concepti s not identical
to the totality of sense impressions referred to;
but it is an arbitrary creation of the human (or animal)
mind . . . The second step . . . we attribute
to this concept of the bodily object a significance, which is to a high degree independento f the sense
impression which originally gives rise to it. This is
whatw e meanw hen we attributet o the bodily object 'a real existence' (p. 60, emphasis added).
The sociological aspect refers to the social interaction
and persuasion processes used to generate a degree of
social consensus regarding the scientific meaning of
an observation or a theory. Marketing strategies are
used to influence both the psychological (individual
level) and social (group level) aspects of the meaning
development process.
Our point here is that all meanings-including the
specific, technical meanings that constitute much of