Abstract
Our aim in this paper is to theorize the relationship of international migration to the more general internationalization of scientific disciplines and specialties. We take account of the existing literature on intellectual migration, but draw especially on our case studies of the spread to English-speaking countries of “German” theoretical physics and the Vienna Circle’s “unified science.” The most obvious role for scientific migration is that of an import-export mechanism: ideas are carried by migrants from one place to another, resulting in their presence in both places. This simple model is insufficient to describe the actual complexities, either practical or conceptual. We consider conceptual issues first, especially those involved in the idea of internationalization.
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Notes
For a more detailed account, see P. Hoch, The reception of Central European refugee physicists in the 1930s: USSR, UK, USA,“ Anumis of Science, 1983, 40: 217–46.
R. Smoluchowski, “Random comments on the early days of solid state physics,” Proceedings of the Royal Society, Series A, 1980, 371: I00–101.
T.F. Glick, ed., The Comparative Reception of Relativity ( Dordrecht: Kluwer. 1987 ).
See S. Coben. The scientific establishment and the transmission of quantum mechanics to the U.S.. 1919–32,“ American Historical Review, 1971, 76: 442–466.
S. Schweber. The empiricist temper regnant: theoretical physics in the U.S., 1920–1950,“ Historical Studies in the Physical Sciences,1986, 17: 55–98, on pp. 71–72.
A. Funkenstein, remarks in discussion at the Bar-Hillel Colloquium for History, Philosophy and Sociology of Science, University of Tel Aviv, given by Hoch in January 1986.
The same could be said in Britain of Michael Polanyi who got a chair in this field at Manchester; and also for Max Born and Rudolf Peierls whose first British chairs were in applied mathematics rather than theoretical physics.
For a more detailed account of the Vienna Circle and its migration, see J. Platt and P. Hoch, “The Vienna Circle in the USA and empirical research methods in sociology,” unpublished paper given at the XII World Congress of Sociology, Madrid 1990.
For a general account of Lazarsfeld and his role, see D.E. Morrison, “Paul Lazarsfeld: the biography of an institutional innovator.” unpublished Ph.D. dissertation (Leicester: Leicester University. 1976 ).
The same pattern could also occur in natural science. Delbrück was born and educated in Germany. went to the U.S. in 1937 and remained there, but kept an interest in Germany and after the war acted as first Director of what became a key research institute in Köln. Cf. P. Starlinger. “No research on mobile genetic elements without mobile scientists,” Perspectives in Biology and Medicine, 1986. 29 supplement: 154–158, on pp. 154–155.
This was sometimes done with the aid of former refugees like Klaus Fuchs, the post-war British “atom spy” who. upon his release from prison. went to important institutional posts in physics in the German Deomocratic Republic.
H. Neave, The Deming Dimension (Knoxville, Tennessee: SPC Press, 1990), pp. 14–25; S. Nakayama, Science. Technology and Society in Postwar Japan ( London: Kegan Paul International, 1991 ), pp. 92–93.
The Vienna Circle, with its outposts in Prague and other central European connections, exemplifies this well.
Soviet-Jewish scientists who migrated to Israel before 1990 were handicapped, as those from the U.S. were not, because they could not keep up their old contacts, which were then confined to the Soviet sphere. Cf. N. Toren, “Scientists,” in R.J. Simon. ed., New Lives (Lexington, MA: Heath, 1985), pp. 93–118, on p. 100.
Some of these might in any case have pursued a “cosmopolitan” career strategy; in practice the boundaries between these categories are not always entirely clear.
M. van Elteren, “Psychology and sociology of work in the Netherlands within the Anglo-American orbit, 1945–80,” unpublished mimeo, 1990.
Rosen shows that U.S. economists’ general theories of development in the 1950s rested on a limited range of experience not replicated elsewhere. Turnbull offers an analogous case, in which the push to develop a malaria vaccine reflected the needs of Western commercial enterprise, while site-specific simple solutions would have done more to cure the disease. Cf. G. Rosen, Western Economists and Eastern Societies (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); D. Turnbull: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1985); D. Turnbull, “The push for a malaria vaccine, ” Social Studies of Science, 1989. 19: 283–300.
J. Cramer and R. Hagendijk. “Dutch fresh-water ecology: the links between national and international scientific research,” Minerva, 1985, 23: 485–503.
M. Polanyi, Personal Knowledge (London: Routledge, 1958) and The Tacit Dimension (London: Routledge, 1967); P. Hoch, “Migration and the generation of new scientific ideas,” Minerva, 1987, 25: 209–237.
The only apparent exception to this, at least in laboratory subjects, may perhaps be when the two scientists have had such a similar formation—probably because either they or their mentors were trained in a common institutional environment—that in the short term it is sufficient to read each other’s papers, even if after a while this must be supplemented by other forms of contact.
Toren points out the difference made by the existence in Israel of government agencies for the absorption of migrants, with special provisions for scientists, as compared to the U.S. where Soviet migrants have at most only schemes run by voluntary Jewish agencies. (Toren, “Scientists,” 1985, p. 98). Ash demonstrates the importance of mediating institutions and disciplinary leaders in selection for transfer. Cf. M. Ash, “Central European émigré psychologists and psycho-analysts in the U.K.,” in W. Mosse, ed., Second Chance ( Tübingen: Mohr, 1991 ), pp. 101–120.
S. Toulmin, Human Understanding, Vol. I ( Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1972 ).
An obvious historical comparison is with the role of the Greeks in the Roman Empire.
P. Feyerabend, Against Method ( London: New Left Books, 1975 ).
J. Habermas, Knowledge and Human Interests (London: Heinemann, 1972); M. Feher, “Epistemology naturalized vs. epistemology socialized,” in I. Hronzky, M. Feher and B. Dajka. eds.. Scientific Knowledge Sociali:ed ( Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1988 ). pp. 75–96.
A. Jamison. National Components of Scientific Knowledge: a contribution to the social theory of science (Lund: Research Policy Institute, 1982 ): Toulmin. Human. pp. 246–250: P. Duhem, La theorie physique: son hua, sa structure, English translation by P. P. Wiener ( Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954 ).
P. Hoch, “John Clarke Slater and the science for the transistor,” European Journal of Physics,1990. 11: 283–291, on pp. 288–289.
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Hoch, P., Platt, J. (1993). Migration and the Denationalization of Science. In: Crawford, E., Shinn, T., Sörlin, S. (eds) Denationalizing Science. Sociology of the Sciences A Yearbook, vol 16. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1221-7_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-1221-7_5
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