The Challenge of Scientometrics: The Development, Measurement, and Self-Organization of Scientific Communications

Scientometrics--the quantitative study of scientific communication--challenges science and technology studies by demonstrating that organized knowledge production and control is amenable to measurement.

First, the various dimensions of the empirical study of the sciences are clarified in a methodological analysis of theoretical traditions, including the sociology of scientific knowledge and neo-conventionalism in the philosophy of science. Second, the author argues why the mathematical theor...