The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science

343 Pages·2004·1.73 MB·English

by  Robert K. Merton

The
Travels and Adventures
of
Serendipity
S

The
Travels and Adventures
of
Serendipity
S
•
Robert K. Merton Elinor Barber
A S t u d y i n
S o c i o l o g i c a l
S e m a n t i c s
a n d t h e
S o c i o l o g y
o f S c i e n c e
P R I N C E T O N U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S S
P R I N C E T O N A N D O X F O R D
Copyright (cid:2) 2004 by Princeton University Press
Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540
In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 3 Market Place,
Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1SY
All Rights Reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Merton, Robert King, 1910–
The travels and adventures of serendipity : a study in sociological semantics and the
sociology of science / Robert K. Merton, Elinor Barber.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-691-11754-3
1. Serendipity in science. 2. Science—Social aspects. I. Barber, Elinor G. II. Title.
Q172.5.S47M47 2004
501—dc21 2003056327
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available
This book has been composed in Galliard with Centaur & Copperplate-Twenty Display
Printed on acid-free paper. (cid:1)
www.pupress.princeton.edu
Printed in the United States of America
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
for Harriet and Bernard
S

Contents
S
Preface by Robert K. Merton ix
Publisher’s Note xi
Introduction by James L. Shulman xiii
Chapter 1 The Origins of Serendipity 1
Chapter 2 Early Diffusion of Serendipity 22
Chapter 3 Accidental Discovery in Science:
Victorian Opinion 41
Chapter 4 Stock Responses to Serendipity 61
Chapter 5 The Qualities of Serendipity 88
Chapter 6 Dictionaries and “Serendipity” 104
Chapter 7 The Social History of Serendipity 123
Chapter 8 Moral Implications of Serendipity 149
Chapter 9 The Diverse Significance of Serendipity
in Science 158
Chapter 10 Serendipity as Ideology and
Politics of Science 199
A Note on Serendipity as a Political Metaphor 219
A Note on Serendipity in the Humanities 223
Afterword Autobiographical Reflections on
The Travels and Adventures of
Serendipity by Robert K. Merton 230
viii Contents
Select References 299
Name Index 303
General Index 309
Preface
R o b e r t K . M e r t o n
S
T
his book traces the word serendipity from its coinage in 1754 by
the English man of letters, Horace Walpole, almost to our own immedi-
ate times, precisely two and a half centuries later. That it was still an
esoteric, not to say mysterious, word known only to a few bibliophiles,
antiquarians, and a handful of scientists in the 1950s when the core of
the book was virtually completed, is shown by their common practice of
defining the word when they first used it.
I make no effort to detail the checkered career of this now extended
book for that is amply described in the Introduction and the Afterword.
Suffice it to say that, at my probably mistaken request, my ever-generous
collaborator Elinor Barber agreed in 1958 to set our manuscript aside
“for a while.” When my editors at Il Mulino, Laura Xella and Giovanna
Movia, approached us in the 1990s, Elinor and I agreed to have it appear
in print for the first time in Italian. After all, the “silly fairy tale” that led
Walpole to his coinage first appeared in sixteenth-century Venice under
the title Peregrinaggio di tre giovani, figliuoli del re di Serendippo, tra-
datto dalla lingua persiana in lingua italiana de M. Christoforo Armeno
and was not translated into English, via a French intermediary, until
1722; this under the title Travels and Adventures of Three Princes of Ser-
endip. Lamentably, Elinor has not lived to see our own Travels and Ad-
ventures in print.
Since our text of the 1950s was never published before the Italian
edition appeared in 2002, it has become, without our intent, a sort of
time capsule indicating how the past and present of the word serendipity
seemed to us as observers back then. This means, of course, that we
could not modify that text if it were to serve the time-capsule function.
Indeed, the only change, apart from the re-division of chapters, is in the