ABSTRACT
The sociology of science is curiously self-exemplifying. As a scientific specialty, it exhibits many of the social patterns its own practitioners study in other contexts, making it a convenient site for sociological study of emerging specialties. Sociologists of knowledge have also not shown much interest in questions about the growth of scientific knowledge. They have occupied themselves primarily with inquiries into the social and existential bases of knowledge. Tracing the emergence of the sociology of science also provides us with an occasion for examining Robert Merton's contributions to these developments. A growing consensus among specialists on the usefulness of certain publications is a prime indicator that a specialty is developing distinctive problematics and thus a cognitive identity. A long and desultory incubation, the sociology of science now seems to have acquired its own cognitive and professional identity.
