Scientific Communities

The Inherent Community in Science

Despite popular media portrayals of scientists as isolated in their own lonely pursuits of arcane knowledge, what is now called “science” has a long history of bringing people together. The importance of the community in the development of scientific knowledge has been examined by numerous historians and sociologists of science. The Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge, or simply the Royal Society, is the oldest scientific community still in existence. It was founded in 1662 by 12 men interested in gathering to discuss Francis Bacon's publications. As natural history and philosophy transitioned from an activity for the elite to a profession in the United States, professional scientific communities emerged. These professional organizations and communities provided practitioners venues for increased collaboration, dialogue, and a collective voice to advocate scientific causes. The American Association of Geologists, founded in 1840, became the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 1848. Sigma Xi is an organization for scientists and engineers that was founded in 1886 and persists today with a membership of around 60,000. Outside these larger scientific communities, there are hundreds of other discipline-specific scientific communities around the world. In the age of online social networking, several of these organizations have some initiatives to add Web-based components to their organizations. Social networking has also raised some new challenges for scientific organizations. Many organizations are trying to figure out how to deal with announcing (via blogs or microblogs) results of studies that have been presented at conferences but have not yet been published. Such quick access to dissemination has represented a significant change, and scientific communities are still grappling with the implications.

Communities in the Age of the Internet

The Internet was created out of U.S. policy makers' intent to maintain a technological edge over the Soviet Union in the post-Sputnik era. The first communication over what would become the Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) occurred between the Stanford Research Institute and the University of California, Los Angeles's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences in 1969. In this sense, the needs of science communities helped bring about the birth of the Internet. In turn, the Internet now serves to dramatically shape the nature of the scientific community not only in how scientists communicate with one another but especially in how scientists communicate and engage with the broader public. Governmental organizations continue to fund and support scientific communication online. The National Science Foundation (NSF), for instance, provides funding for a range of science cyberinfrastructure projects as well as research into virtual organizations (such as the Virtual Organizations as Sociotechnical Systems program). Many NSF grantees use social media such as blogs, Google Maps, Flickr, and podcasts to engage the public and satisfy the broader impact requirements of NSF grants. For example, the Scripps Environmental Accumulation of Plastic Expedition (SEAPLEX) out of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography uses blogs, microblogging (Twitter), image uploads on Flickr, Google Maps, and video to engage enthusiasts in its exploration of the Great Pacific Ocean Garbage Patch, hot spots of debris floating and gathering for hundreds of miles in a stretch of the North Pacific Ocean.

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