Visible Scientist

The expression visible scientist is used to refer to scientists with particular “visibility” outside specialist circles and who may be familiar to the general public. According to Rae Goodell's seminal 1977 study on this topic, the emergence of visible scientists in the second half of the 20th century reflected not only a quantitative increase in their number but also a shift in the nature of their popularity. Contemporary scientists become visible not only because of their competence but also because of their ability to match—and exploit—the operational logic of the mass media by taking their message directly to the public. Success for these individuals means being known not only for scientific expertise but also for public involvement.

Studies by Hans Peter Peters and others have shown that the criteria used by the media to select “scientific experts” to comment on a certain issue do not necessarily coincide with those of the scientific community: Key elements in the choice of experts by journalists may be their visibility externally to the research community (as members of advisory committees, as politicians, or as popularizers), their accessibility in relation to the limited resources and time available to the journalist, the fact that they may be interesting from a human point of view, their willingness to comment on a wide range of topics, and the idea that their “use” can be easily justified (for example, because they belong to a particularly prestigious institution or have received particular awards or honors).

However, the distribution of public visibility among scientists has close similarities with the mechanisms governing the distribution of more traditional resources and rewards—such as prestige or opportunities to publish—within the scientific community. Sociologist Robert Merton dubbed one of these mechanisms the “Matthew effect,” referring to a passage in Matthew's Gospel which reads: “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.” In science, this principle translates into a cumulative effect that exponentially rewards those who already occupy privileged positions. According to Merton, scientific contributions will be more visible when introduced by scientists already accorded a high rank.

Based on analysis of empirical data, Merton and his group found, for instance, that papers submitted to a scientific journal were accepted more frequently if one of the authors was a Nobel laureate or a particularly well-known researcher. Similarly, a scientist's papers were cited much more frequently after that person had received a highly visible reward, such as a Nobel Prize. As a paradigmatic case, Merton cites an episode involving Lord Rayleigh, the great physicist. Rayleigh's name had been accidentally removed from a paper submitted to the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The association committee rejected the paper. As soon as the name of the real author was disclosed, however, the paper was accepted.

In 1996, a few hours after his application for government funding to continue studies on the structure of a new form of carbon named C60 had been turned down by a research council, the chemist Harry Kroto was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for those same studies. The announcement prompted the research council to immediately reverse its decision, as reported by [Page 933]science communication scholars Jane Gregory and Steven Miller. Merton considers these types of mechanisms to be due to the scarcity of “recognition” as a resource and to rigidity in the forms of its allocation. He regards the Matthew effect as dysfunctional from the point of view of individual careers, especially for those in the early stages, but functional for the scientific system, insofar as it allows rapid selection to be made from the huge numbers of papers submitted to journals. In certain cases, the names of highly visible scientists can direct the attention of the community to particularly innovative findings that would otherwise be ignored.

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